Japan rallies late, stuns Mexico to advance to WBC final vs. U.S.
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MIAMI — This was the moment Shohei Ohtani had never had in the majors, the atmosphere he had never experienced. He has never hurried into second base with his helmet long gone, thrown his arms to the sky and hollered at the top of his lungs.
He has never seen his team face a ninth-inning deficit in an elimination game, in a packed North American stadium hanging on every pitch, then played a key part by delivering a hit that started the comeback. By no fault of his own, Shohei Ohtani has never had the chance to be clutch, not under lights quite as bright as the ones at the World Baseball Classic semifinal against Mexico on Monday night in Miami’s Little Havana.
As it turns out, the best player on the planet can do clutch, too — and his fingerprints were very much in evidence in Japan’s thrilling 6-5 win that sends his country into the WBC final on Tuesday against the United States at LoanDepot Park.
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“I know he felt sorry the whole time,” Japan Manager Hideki Kuriyama said through an interpreter in the postgame news conference. “He’s much better batter than that. He just wanted him to prove to the world. So I don’t hesitate, I believe in him. But we had to do something in order for him to have a chance to make a hit.”
His team entered the bottom of the ninth trailing by a run. Ohtani swung at the first pitch he saw, lashing it into the gap for a leadoff double. He then yelled to his dugout, as if willing them to follow him. They did.
That yell? It resonated in the Japanese dugout. “I think he gave us all the power and emotion,” Mureteka Murakami said of Ohtani yelling at second base.
Murakami felt it. After Matasaka Yoshida, whose majestic three-run homer in the seventh tied the game, walked, Murakami doubled. And Ohtani, at 28 one of the best players in major league history yet to appear in a postseason game, finally found himself charging into a celebratory pileup.
Ohtani won’t start against the Americans, but Japan has not ruled out the possibility of him serving as closer in the championship game.
So much of this tournament has been Ohtani’s show, from his epic batting practice performances in the Tokyo Dome, to hitting seemingly at will against some of Japan’s weaker pool play opponents. And when he took the field in Miami on Monday afternoon, he became the show again. In the regular season, Ohtani does not take batting practice on the field. But this is not the regular season. He put on a show.
When he was done launching balls to unthinkable reaches of LoanDepot Park, the hundreds of Japanese fans already at their seats applauded. But once the game began, Ohtani was not the center of attention.
At times, that title belonged to 21-year-old pitching prodigy Roki Sasaki, who made his first start against major leaguers. He flashed the 102 mph sinker and devastating splitter that have major league scouts salivating before allowing a three-run homer to Luis Urias.
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At times, the game seemed to belong to Patrick Sandoval, Ohtani’s Angels teammate, who threw 4⅓ scoreless innings in perhaps the biggest start of his career, too.
Mexico outfielder Randy Arozarena seemed likely to be the hero at various points in the game, flashing his trademark cross-armed pose as he made catch after catch after catch in deep left field, then doubled to start an eighth-inning rally that seemed likely to be decisive. Until Japan had the final say in the ninth.
New Boston Red Sox outfielder Yoshida has actually outhit Ohtani in the tournament, and he was just as big a hero Monday night. His three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh revived Samurai Japan. That homer gave him his 11th, 12th and 13th RBI of the WBC — a tournament record.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the 24-year-old who pitched to a 1.95 ERA in NPB last year, who also seems likely to head stateside soon, looked just as dominant until he allowed Arozarena and team Mexico to score two more against him in the top of the eighth.
And it was Murakami, who broke Sadaharu Oh’s long-standing Japanese single-season home run record last year but struggled mightily and conspicuously in this tournament, whose hit scored Ohtani and Yoshida in that ninth inning. Murakami is 23. Like Sasaki, Yamamoto, and others on Japan’s roster, he seems likely to be among the next generation of Japanese stars to test themselves in the majors — to be the next big Japanese star.
But no Japanese star is bigger than Ohtani, who lurked all night and struck when given the chance. By the end of the celebration, his jersey was gone, his hair a mess — the picture of exhausted happiness, a picture MLB fans so rarely get to see from him, one they are desperate to see again and again.
A few minutes later, when the field was clear, Kuriyama sat for a postgame news conference. His team had just beaten Team Mexico in epic fashion to secure a spot in the WBC final against the United States. One of the very first questions asked: Will Ohtani pitch in the final? He did not rule it out.