Samurai Japan’s identity crisis led to WBC disaster

MIAMI — Shohei Ohtani gritted his teeth and sucked in some air.

“It’s extremely disappointing for it to end like this,” Ohtani said in Japanese, “but there’s always next time.”

Next time could be the Olympics. Or the next World Baseball Classic.

Whatever the case, Samurai Japan has a major decision to make between now and then: It has to figure out what it wants to be.

Because the Japanese received a definitive verdict on the state of their game in their 8–5 loss to Venezuela in the quarterfinals of the WBC.

What they’re doing isn’t working.

They came into the tournament with the mentality of fighting fire with fire — and they were ultimately burned by an explosive Venezuelan team featuring Ronald Acuña Jr., Maikel Garcia and Wilyer Abreu.

“My impression,” Ohtani said, “was that we were overpowered in the end.”

By modernizing their approach, the Japanese lost their identity. By straying too far from their traditions, they cost themselves any chance of winning this tournament for a third consecutive time.

They didn’t play Japanese baseball. They prioritized offense over defense, the long ball over small ball.

The plan had a fundamental problem. Outside of the three established major league hitters in their lineup — Ohtani, Seiya Suzuki and Masataka Yoshida — no one could be counted on to inflict damage.

The dropoff from the Big Three to everyone else was noticeable, even in a group stage of the tournament in which the Japanese were undefeated. Their supporting cast wasn’t made up of enough players who could figure out how to reach base by any means necessary. Nor did they have enough players who could just move over a runner.

Little wonder Samurai Japan didn’t score a single run against Venezuela after the third inning, especially with Suzuki forced out of the game with a knee injury.

Every one of Japan’s runs was scored on an extra-base hit — one on Ohtani’s leadoff homer in the bottom of the first, another on a double by Teruaki Sato in the third and the last three on a homer by Shota Morishita later in the same inning.

And to think the Japanese sacrificed defense to field such a lineup, with manager Hirokazu Ibata starting Suzuki in center field, a position he has played only once in four seasons with the Chicago Cubs.

Japan’s existential crisis will affect the major leagues. 

Sato, 27, and Munetaka Murakami, 26, are considered two of the country’s best offensive prospects. They have both adopted the mentality of American power hitters, which is another way of saying they strike out a lot compared to top Japanese players of the past. 

Their all-or-nothing approach has produced results in the Japanese league. But will it translate to success against the kind of high-velocity pitchers they will see in the major leagues?

Murakami was a two-time MVP in Japan, but widespread skepticism over his ability to hit major league fastballs cratered his market when he became a free agent this winter. He settled for a two-year, $34-million contract with the Chicago White Sox. Saito remains with the Hanshin Tigers, but he will almost certainly encounter similar doubts when he makes his move to the United States.

As much as the Japanese made efforts to evolve their game, they failed to do so in the one area in which it could have made a difference in this tournament: pitching.

Some of this was out of their control. Ohtani wasn’t available to pitch in this tournament. Roki Sasaki of the Dodgers and Kodai Senga of the New York Mets weren’t either. But there were other hard throwers who could have been included on the team, including Pacific League co-saves leader Kuzuki Sugiyama of the SoftBank Hawks, Shunpeita Yamashita of the Orix Buffaloes and Hiroto Saiki of the Hanshin Tigers. Sugiyama and Yamashita are 6-foot-3, Saiki is 6-2 and all three of them have fastballs in the high-90s.

Samurai Japan instead built its bullpen around a group of undersized control pitchers, and that was what ultimately cost the team its 5–2 lead. The margin was reduced to a run when 5-foot-9 left-hander Chihiro Sumida served up a two-run homer to Garcia in the fifth inning. Japan was overtaken in the sixth when another 5-foot-9 pitcher, right-hander Hiromi Itoh, gave up a three-run blast to Abreu. 

This wasn’t a blueprint for victory. This was a recipe for disaster.

The Japanese will have to change with the times to reclaim their place as the No. 1 team in international baseball. But they can’t play their opponents’ game. They can’t lose the qualities that once separated them from everyone else.

That’s what they did in this tournament. The punishment was severe.

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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com