Japan beats US to win 1st gold
YOKOHAMA, Japan — Japan’s players sprinted onto the mound and the collection of All-Stars hoisted their manager up and down as if on a trampoline.
They beamed when hanging shiny gold medals around each other’s necks, fullfilling a national mission with the first Olympic baseball title in their nation’s history.
American players didn’t seem overly upset. The released veterans, prospects and career minor leaguers thought they had given their best.
“I really feel like we left it all out there,” pitcher Nick Martinez said after Japan eeked out enough runs to win Saturday night’s gold-medal game 2-0.
Munetaka Murakami, at 21 the youngest player in Japan’s starting lineup, hit an opposite-field homer over the 16-foot wall in left-center on a 2-2 pitch from Martinez (1-1) in the third. Martinez winced as the ball landed in the fourth row of the empty blue seats.
“I thought we had him set up nice for a changeup there,” Martinez said. “Just a nice piece of hitting.”
Japan added an unearned run in the eighth when Tetsuto Yamada singled off reliever Scott McGough leading off, Hayato Sakamoto sacrificed, Masataka Yoshida singled and center fielder Jack Lopez heaved the ball past the plate for a run-scoring error.
Masato Morishita (2-0), a 23-year-old right-hander, gave up three hits over five innings, struck out five and walked none.
Kodai Senga, Hiromi Itoh, Suguru Iwazaki and Ryoji Kuribayashi finished a sixhitter, and the Japanese men (5-0) matched the accomplishment of the women’s softball team, which upended the Americans by the same score for their second straight gold medal.
“They deserved to win,” said U.S. manager Mike Scioscia, denied in his attempt to match the feat of his mentor, late Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, who led the U.S. to the 2000 gold medal.
Japan manager Atsunori Inaba, a former All-Star and batting champion, said the medals seemed shiny and felt heavy. He was proud the Samurai showed off their brand of baseball, which relies on defense, bunting and advancing runners, in defeating the American variety dependant on power and increasingly dominated by the Three True Outcomes: home runs, strikeouts and walks.
Japan beat the U.S. twice in six days, also rallying in the ninth and winning 7-6 in 10 innings on Aug. 2.
“Our team played really under such different circumstances than they usually face back in the States in a normal season. Every game was a Game 7,” Scioscia said. “We got within a couple breaks of winning the gold medal.”
Several hundred people who appeared to be team staff and Olympic volunteers cheered on the host nation in a largely empty 34,000-capacity Yokohama Stadium, some wearing orange Japan jerseys and matching facemasks on the warm and humid night.