It's debatable whether or not a team needs to play "perfect defensively" to beat Japan as Australia manager Jon Deeble lamented after his team's 10-3 loss on Sunday night.
First, it helps to not commit four errors or allow five unearned runs the way the Australians did, but that same Aussie squad was far, far from perfection when it was five outs and one ill-fated pitch from beating Japan Saturday night, instead falling 3-2 after Ryoji Aikawa's three-run homer in the eighth.
What you can take out of the teams' two-game series is that at least someone, anyone, on the Japanese team may indeed need to play a perfect game if the Samurai are to bring home the World Baseball Classic title for the third consecutive time