(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
   Japan wins first Asian Professionall Championship
Nederlands
 TOKYO (Japan) -
Japan is the winner of the first edition of the Asia Professional Baseball Championship.
Last Sunday (November 19), the Samurai Japan Team shutout South Korea 7-0 in the Final of the 4-day event.
The games of the inaugural edition were played in the Tokyo Dome in the Japanese capital.
Besides Japan and South Korea, Taiwan (Chinese Taipei) was the third country that participated.
The APBC is sanctioned by the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC).
Japan is the number one country on the WBSC-raking list, Korea is third and Taiwan is fourth.
The USA is in second place.
...The Tokyo Dome also was the site for games during all four...
...World Baseball Classics played since 2006...
...On the photo, the Netherlands Team has batting practice...
...before a game in 2013...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
The APBC is a competition which is set up and organized by the three professional leagues of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB, Japan), Korea Baseball Organization (KBO, South Korea) and Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL, Taiwan).
Participating in the event are national teams with professional players under-24.
All players must be a national of the country they represent, must be born in 1993 or later or must have less than three years in professional baseball.
Each team can add three players over-24 to its roster, which has 25 players.
In the past, the champions of the professional leagues met in the Asia Series, which was a club-competition and was held seven times between 2005 and 2013.
The champions of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan participated in all seven editions.
The champion of the professional league in China participated five times and the champion of Australia took part in the last three editions in 2011-2013.
Once, Europe also was represented, which was in the last edition in 2013.
Fortitudo Bologna then participated as winner of the European Champions Cup.
The new event opened on Thursday (November 16) with an exiting first game, which lasted four hours and 29 minutes.
Host Japan met South Korea and won 8-7 in ten innings.
Japan opened the score with one run in the bottom of the third inning, but trailed 4-1 after four innings.
Japan got two runs back in the sixth, then came alongside in the ninth to force extra innings.
In the top of the 10th inning, South Korea re-took the lead by scoring three runs, but Japan answered with four runs to win!
In the opener, trailing 1-0, South Korea rallied for four runs in the top of the fourth inning.
Short stop Ha-seong Kim led off with a homerun to bring Korea alongside.
Hereafter, Won-jun Choi and Hyun Jung both singled to put runners at the corners.
A sacrifice bunt/squeeze by Ju-suk Ha then gave South Korea the lead.
Two walks loaded the bases and with two outs, Jung-hoo Lee delivered a 2-run double that made it a 4-1 score.
In the bottom of the sixth, Kensuke Kondo led off for Japan with a single, then first baseman Hotaka Yamakawa followed with a 2-run homerun.
In the bottom of the ninth, Japan came alongside when Yota Kyoda received a basesloaded walk, but three runners were left behind.
In the top of the 10th, South Korea scored three runs thanks to back-to-back doubles with one out by Ji-hyuk Ryu (one run) and Ju-suk Ha (2 runs).
However, in the bottom of the 10th, Japan scored four runs.
With two tie-break runners on base and one out, rightfielder Seiji Uebayashi hit a 3-run homerun to make it a 7-7 score!
With two outs, Ryoma Nishikawa singled, stole second base and scored the winning run on a walk-off double by catcher Tatsuhiro Tamura.
On Friday, the second game was another suspenseful match-up, as South Korea won only 1-0 against Taiwan with both teams hitting only four basehits.
The Koreans scored the lone run in the sixth inning.
With two outs, Ha-seong Kim walked, then scored when Jung-hoo Lee followed with a triple.
Winning pitcher Gi-yeong Im struckout seven hitters and gave up only two hits in seven innings.
On Saturday, Japan won 8-2 against Taiwan.
With that, Taiwan lost its second game, meaning that Japan and South Korea reached the Final.
Japan collected 12 basehits, including three by Shuta Tonosaki, who missed only the triple to hit for-the-cycle.
In the second inning, Tonosaki homered to open the score.
Yota Kyoda added a 2-run single in the fifth at bat.
Three more runs were scored in the seventh, thanks to a 2-run double by Go Matsumoto and a basesloaded walk for Seiji Uebayashi.
A single by Yota Kyoda in the eighth and a double by Shuta Tonosaki in the ninth lifted the lead to 8-0.
Taiwan then scored its two runs in the bottom of the ninth.
Yu-hsien Chu led off with a homerun and with the bases loaded, the second run was scored when Chieh-hsien Chen was hit by a pitch.
On Sunday, Japan outhit South Korea 11-3 and recorded a convincing 7-0 win.
Japan opened the score in the fourth inning, then rallied for three runs in the next at bat.
In the fourth inning, a single by leftfielder Shuta Tonosaki produced Japan's first run.
With the bases loaded and one out in the fifth at bat, Tonosaki again delivered, this time hitting a runscoring single.
Ryoma Nishikawa followed with a 2-run double.
In the sixth, two more runs were scored on a single by Hotaka Yamakawa, then Nishikawa added a homerun in the seventh.
Tonosaki was 2-for-3 and batted in two runs, Nishikawa was 3-for-4 and batted in three runs.
Winning pitcher Kazuto Taguchi gave up only three hits in seven innings.
Shuta Tonosaki (Japan) was named Most Valuable Player of the event.
The following players were chosen in the APBC All Star Team:
Pitcher - Kazuto Taguchi (Japan); Catcher - Seung-taek Han (South Korea); 1st Base - Yu-hsien Chu (Taiwan); 2nd Base - Min-woo Park (South Korea); 3rd Base - Ryoma Nishikawa (Japan); Short Stop - Ha-seong Kim (South Korea); Outfield - Shuta Tonosaki (Japan); Outfield - Go Matsumoto (Japan); Outfield - Po-jung Wang (Taiwan); Designated Hitter - Kensuke Kondoh (Japan)
(November 21)
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