‘Whole-team effort’ lifts Japan
Kennewick held to two hits, but one is Howard’s 13th in series, breaking record
International baseball power Japan is back in a very familiar and comfortable position: world champion.
Japan played a nearly flawless game Saturday night to win the Cal Ripken World Series championship, beating the U.S. champion, Kennewick, Wash., 7-0, at Cal Sr.’s Yard in Aberdeen.
“Simply, I’m pretty happy about this and this is a whole-team effort,” Japan manager Katsumi Sekiguchi said with translation aid from coach Ty Date. “Awesome players, awesome family members, awesome host families — this is a whole-team effort to get [a] championship.”
Japan’s pitching dominated the Washington hitters, limiting them to two hits and striking out 11.
Keito Matsuura pitched four innings of two-hit ball, striking out nine. Reliever Hiroki Hayashi worked two hitless innings, striking out two.
“I kind of struggled on putting it on the spots on the control side, so I used the curveball to change in order to adjust the control. It worked out very well,” Matsuura said.
Japan wasted no time in getting its offense rolling, hitting three singles in the top of the first inning and scoring two runs.
Hirotaka Saitoh led off with a single and Soshi Yoshino followed with a high chopper off the glove of Washington third baseman Ivan Palomino.
Ryoma Ikeda hit a shallow foul pop that first baseman Gage Ackerman fielded, but Saitoh tagged up on the catch and raced home with the first run.
Kairi Matsumura, the pitching hero in the international championship win over Puerto Rico, added a line-drive single up the middle to score Yoshino, the second run.
Matsumura, who was named the International Most Valuable Player, added a two-run single in the third.
Japan brought out the extra-base hits against Washington reliever Cash Hailey in the fourth. Kenta Nozaki greeted Hailey with a long home run to right-center field and an out later, Mikuta Katayama and Keito Matsuura hit back-to-back doubles to push the lead to 6-0.
Matsumura added his fourth RBI of the night in the fifth inning, hitting a sacrifice fly that scored Ikeda.
Ikeda had singled and was at third on an errant pickoff attempt.
Washington’s Simeon Howard hit a first-inning double for his 13th hit of the series, a Cal Ripken World Series record.
“It feels good. At first I didn’t know I even had that many hits, and then everybody was like, ‘You’re tied for that record,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, for real?’ ” Howard said.
Ivan Palomino had the other hit for Washington, a third-inning single.
Myles Mayovsky, the first of four Washington pitchers, took the loss in three innings on the mound.
“Our main focus was to get a six-inning game in, not get 10-runned and hopefully put some runs on the board,” Washington manager Bryan Knapik said.
“7-0, I’m happy with. That’s by far the best team we’ve played.”