Card Of The Week March 15

As you probably know by now, Samurai Japan lost to Venezuela last night and have been eliminated from this year's World Baseball Classic.  It's the first time Japan has failed to make the semi-finals in the six tournaments.  I'm not going to do any second guessing about anything - there's a lot of things that factor into a single ballgame going one way or another so it's really hard to pinpoint a reason for a loss.  

I do want to mention that I think Japan is handicapped by their intercontinental travel.  They've lost the first game they've played on American soil four times out of the six tournaments.  They lost their first game of the second round in 2006 - they actually went 1-2 in the round - but it was a round robin style round that year and they won the tie breaker with two other 1-2 teams (the US and Mexico) to take second place behind the undefeated Korean team.  They won their first game in the second round in 2009 but lost their second one - it used a double elimination format that year so they were able to rally and ended up winning the top seed in the pool.  The second rounds for the 2013 and 2017 tournaments were held in Japan so their first games in the US were the semifinal games in San Francisco and Los Angeles respectively and they lost both games.  The second round in 2023 was also held in Japan although, like this year, it was a single game.  Once again, Japan's first game in the US was in the semifinals and they barely defeated Mexico.  This year, their first game in US was an elimination game in the "second round" - now known as the "knockout stage".  This obviously is a small sample size but I wonder if Japan would have made it to the semifinals if the "knockout stage" had been played in Tokyo again (which would have required one of the first rounds that was played in the Western hemisphere to have been played in Korea or Taiwan again).

For this week's post, I figured I'd feature the two offensive stars from last night (other the Shohei Ohtani).  With Japan down 2-1 in the bottom of the third, Teruaki Sato laced a double into the right field corner to bring in Sosuke Genda with the tying run.  Shota Morishita - who had just entered the game as a replacement for the injured Seiya Suzuki - followed up with a three run home to left, putting Japan up 5-2.  Unfortunately, those were the final runs the team would score in the game.  Here are cards of Sato and Morishita in their Hanshin Tigers uniforms:

2025 BBM 35th Anniversary/Shukan Baseball 4000th Issue #133

2023 Epoch One #956