NPB Tracker

Last night’s Japan-Korea final was certainly the best WBC game I’ve ever seen, and probably the best one in the WBC’s short history. The live chat I hosted during the game was missing a few of the usual suspects but was a great one — thanks everyone who participated.

Here are my bullet points on the good…

• Both Japan and Korea should be proud of the game they played. Both teams had a chance to win and I think they both earned a lot of respect internationally. I’ve always been interested in Korean baseball, but I’ll certainly follow the KBO a little more closely this year. Rather than winning bragging rights over each other, I think they’ve both earned bragging rights in the international baseball world.
• For my money, Hisashi Iwakuma was the tournament MVP.
• Japan executed small ball tactics pretty well over the last three games. I saw at least three successful hit and run plays, and a number of good bunts and lots of good defense. 
• The Japan-Korea rivalry created an electric atmosphere. I’d love to see the two countries get together for something like The Ashes.
• Everyone is second-guessing Korea manager In-Sik Kim’s decision to pitch to Ichiro in the 10th, but to me the decision wasn’t totally cut and dry. Ichiro hadn’t performed in the WBC until the final game, and Hiroyuki Nakajima had had a pretty good tournament. I’m not saying I agree or disagree with his call, but had he walked Ichiro we might be wondering why he loaded the bases for Nakajima.
• I actually think Hara made pretty good moves over the last few games. 
• Unheralded players of the tournament for me are Toshiya Sugiuchi and Satoshi Komatsu.

And the less good…

• Yu Darvish really struggled with his command in the 9th inning last night. Ultimately it made the game more exciting, but he could have challenged hitters with his excellent fastball a little more, particularly with no one on base.
• Daisuke Matsuzaka, like Darvish had a bad habit of nibbling until he got into trouble, and then challenging hitters. Guys, you have good stuff! Go after hitters.
• Japan played five games against Korea, two against Cuba, and one each against China and the USA. It didn’t detract from the final, but the seeding game was pretty mellow compared to the others. 
• Japan won despite having Yoshiyuki Kamei on the roster.

Thoughts?

This is it — the seemingly pre-destined Japan vs Korea WBC championship game. Hisashi Iwakuma takes the mound for Japan, while Jung Bong gets the call for Korea. Yu Darvish will be available for relief work for Japan. This game may be for bragging rights, but I think that both teams can brag that they’ve defeated several strong competitors to make it this far. It should be a great game.

The WBC live chats have been good fun so we’ll do another for the USA vs Japan. All are welcome for an evening of talkin’ baseball.

Game time is Sunday, March 22, 5:00pm PDT (time in your area), and the anticipated starters are Daisuke Matsuzaka and Roy Oswalt. 

The winner moves on the Championship game, the loser will go back to spring training.

I’m sitting here trying to watch tonight’s Korea-Venezuela game, but ESPN is showing college wrestling instead. Why??? How can this possibley attract more viewers than the WBC game? 

The game is on ESPN Classic until the wrestling is over, but that channel isn’t included in my cable package. I guess I’ll either have to wait for find a live feed.

Update: Okay, the wrestling ended and they switched back to the WBC, 19 minutes after game time and just in time to see Korea jump out to a 1-0 lead. The wrestling match was in overtime, which I didn’t know they had in wrestling.

Japan cleanup hitter Shuichi Murata is out of the WBC with a pulled a hamstring, suffered rounding first on a single in Thursday night’s win over Korea. Despite replacing him in the game with scrub Yoshiyuaki Kamei, Japan won the game. Manager Tatsunori Hara has called on Hiroshima Carp infielder Kenta Kurihara to take Murata’s spot. Kurihara bats cleanup for Hiroshima but doesn’t have Murata’s power and hasn’t played much at third recently. 

Maybe Hara will have Kurihara DH and play Munenori Kawasaki or Yasuyuki Kataoka at third.

Japan and Korea square off for the fourth time in this year’s WBC, with Korea holding the edge 2-1. Tetsuya Utsumi gets the start for Japan, while Jang Wonsam gets the call for Korea. This game determines the seedings for the semifinal round, but both teams are guaranteed to move on.

US-based fans can see the game on ESPN; Japan and Korea-based fans can certainly watch the game locally, we’ll see if we can find a live feed for others.

The live chat will be moderated and trolls will not be tolerated.

Update: For the March 19 game, please click here.

Update: Very touch ‘n go schedule for me tonight. We’ll start now 8:00pm, but I’ll be interrupted.

We’ll do another live chat for tonight’s WBC game. Should be a good one — another rematch of the 2006 final, only this time the loser goes home. Hisashi Iwakuma takes the hill for Japan, while Yuneski Maya goes for Cuba. Tonight’s game will be on ESPN2 in my area, so I don’t anticipate messing around with justin.tv tonight.

It took a while to find a way to actually watch the game here in the States, but I finally did.

About the game…

• Jung Bong shut Japan down again, indicating that his round one performance was no fluke.
• Yu Darvish was better than the final line makes him look. He was done in in the first (from what I saw of the highlights) by a couple of a couple of booted infield grounders and a weak throw from Norichika Aoki.
• After the first inning, Korea didn’t do much of anything until the eighth, when they let Japan’s pitchers beat themselves with walks.
• Japan got runners on base and generally made contact, but they didn’t get any extra-base hits and didn’t really play the small-ball game. I think that’s what cost them the win more than anything.
• Akinori Iwamura looked like he had no chance against Chang Yang Lim in the last at-bat of the game.
• I wasn’t crazy about Korea planting their flag on the mound at the end. They didn’t win the tournament.

Hindsight is 20/20…

• Tatsunori Hara had the infield positioned for a play at the plate when Korea had the bases loaded in the first. If they had been a double-play depth they would have gotten at least one out on Jin-young Lee’s grounder went for a two-run single.
• I would rather start Munenori Kawasaki than Yasuyuki Kataoka if Hiroyuki Nakajima can’t play, especially since Kataoka is out of position at shortstop.
• What was the point of putting Yoshiyuki Ishihara in for Kenji Johjima, just to pinch hit for him with Shinnosuke Abe after an inning? Johjima got ejected — shame on me for watching with the sound off.
• Minoru Iwata didn’t look sharp — and leaving him in to face the righty looked really bad when Masahiro Tanaka came in and blew the next guy away.

On the live chat…

• The chat thing was a spur-of-the-moment idea, so I didn’t give much notice. If I try this again, I’ll give more notice and hopefully I’ll get to chat with a few of the regulars.
• The chat was pretty well-trafficed, mostly because it wound up near the top of the Google rankings for several variations on “wbc japan korea live”. A lot of people found this site for the first time because of that, and I hope some of them will stick around.
• It took some time to find a good video feed, but I think at least a couple people were able to follow along.
• Some of the comments I got on the chat tested my patience — though the people causing the problems clearly weren’t frequent visitors to this site. I hope everyone will be cool next time we do this.
• I think it was insane for ESPN to show the NIT tournament instead of this.

This will start at 9:00pm

I’m going to try to do a live chat for tonight’s WBC game. I’ll probably come and go during the game but I’ll be around. If this works out we’ll do it again some time.

ESPN isn’t showing this game live (stupid NIT tournament!), so I’ll have to find it on justin.tv.

This feed seems to be working.

Since starting this blog, the one question I’ve heard more than any other is the one in the subject of this entry.

And now I finally have answer.

Today. Tuesday, March 17. St. Patrick’s Day.

Darvish will go for Japan, Jung Keun Bong will pitch for korea. You might remember Bong from his time with the Braves and Reds, when he was known as Jung Bong. Bong never stuck in the bigs, but posted a 2.66 era in 186 1/3 for the LG Twins of the KBO last year. He shut Japan down over 5 1/3 innings in Pool A championship game. 

Game time is 8:00pm Pacific Standard Time. Should be a good one!