World Baseball Classic: Japan 9, Italy 3
This elimination game featured a superb illustration of the wisdom of an American dictum: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Team Italy manager Mike Piazza removed his starter, Ryan Castellani, just two innings into a scoreless tie in the team’s quarterfinal game against favored Japan.
Castellani, who pitches for the Oakland A’s, had delivered two innings in which he allowed just one hit, and he had thrown just 39 of his allotted 80 pitches.
But with the top of the Japanese order scheduled to bat again, Piazza lifted Castellani. Perhaps he wanted to avoid giving his opponents a second look at Castellani, or possibly he was constrained by an instruction from the A’s, so in came reliever Joe LaSorsa.
Before you could say, “Hey, it ain’t broke,” Kensuke Kondoh walked, Shohei Ohtani bunted his way on base, Kondoh scored on a groundout, Munetaka Murakami walked, and Kazuma Okamoto planted a high fastball in the left field seats for a three-run home run.
That made the score 4-0 and Samurai Japan was effectively on its way to Miami for a semifinal matchup next Sunday with the winner of a quarterfinal game between Mexico and Puerto Rico.
It also turned out to be all the slack Japan needed. Italy made up two of those runs in the top of the fifth, Japan piled on three more in the bottom half, and the outcome was settled. Masataka Yoshida piled on with a seventh-inning home run and Italy’s Dominic Fletcher homered late to set the final margin.