Samurai Japan wrapped up its series of exhibition games on Sunday at Tokyo Dome, finishing with a 3-1 record against Mexico (1-1) and the Netherlands. But Japan’s top team couldn’t care less about the result from each game. The team understands there are still issues that have to be resolved and improvements that need to be made in order to reclaim the World Baseball Classic title next spring.
After Japan’s 12-10 extra-inning win over the Dutch on Sunday, pitching coach Hiroshi Gondo was very upset that his hurlers had failed to perform well and had allowed too many runs.
“The fans may have enjoyed it (to see so many runs), but to me, it was the worst game,” he said of Sunday’s contest. “(Our pitchers) threw too many hittable pitches where they shouldn’t have. And because (other countries’) have a lot of power, that could cost you games (at the WBC). I’m absolutely not happy at all that we won the game the way we played it.”
Gondo, 77, stressed that his pitchers would need to be more careful at the WBC. Japan was eliminated in the semifinals at the 2013 edition.
“Teams are assembling their best players, so they are going to hit if you throw hittable pitches,” said the former Yokohama BayStars manager, who led the team to the 1998 Japan Series title. “Our pitchers are capable, but they just allowed too many hits, and you should not let your opponents do that.”
Samurai Japan skipper Hiroki Kokubo has repeatedly said that his team’s defense, including its pitching staff, will be its biggest strength at the WBC. In last week’s four-game series, however, Japan yielded a total of 29 runs to Mexico and the Netherlands, both of whom will compete in the Classic. That’s 7.25 runs per game.
Kokubo was disappointed that his pitchers didn’t come through in the exhibitions, which were the last chance for Samurai Japan to test itself in actual games against other nations before the Classic.
“The pitching staff, as we’ve stressed, wasn’t able to live up to our expectations,” the 45-year-old manager said. “Especially some of our starting pitchers, who didn’t pitch as well as they should have.”
The WBC will have pitch-count limits and with that in mind, Kokubo selected eight starting pitchers and five relievers for the exhibition series. But he said he and his coaching staff would be open to altering the strategy for the March tourney.
“We rallied from behind thanks for our offense in this series,” said Kokubo, who hinted he would use Shohei Otani and Tomoyuki Sugano as his core starters, as it is uncertain if MLB hurlers such as Masahiro Tanaka and Kenta Maeda will join the team for the WBC. “But at the actual tournament (WBC), other teams won’t let you do that as easily as this.”
Meanwhile, coach Yoshinori Murata emphasized that the team must take a different approach to the data it receives from its scouts on rival teams.
Murata, who was a scout for Team Japan for the 2013 WBC, said Japanese pitchers should not rely solely on scouting reports, even if they have a lot of them.
“I felt as a scout at the last WBC that sometimes, many times, the opposing hitters outperform your data,” said Murata, a former catcher for the Yomiuri Giants. “You should expect that they’ll do better than your scouting reports.
“Our scouts will start their scouting on Cuba, China and Australia (who are in the same first-round pool as Japan) soon, but you have to think that (hitters of other countries) could do better by 10, 20 percent. Otherwise, you can’t win.”
Speaking of data, Kokubo said Japan, a two-time WBC champion, is a major target for scouts from other countries as well.
“When I traveled (to the United States earlier this year), teams were playing bold defensive shifts,” he said. “Like a third baseman moving near first base after two strikes and all that. That’s the mainstream in baseball now.
“Japan had a roster full of top players, so (the Netherlands and Mexico) probably studied us before this series.”
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