Tetsuya Utsumi is making an appearance at his second World Baseball Classic, but his role will be a lot more important this time.

Although he was on the hill for just three innings, the Yomiuri Giants lefty put up a superb outing on Tuesday night, giving up a hit and no runs and fanning three batters in a 1-0 loss to the Hanshin Tigers at Kyocera Dome in a warmup game for the WBC.

For skipper Koji Yamamoto and his Japan team, Utsumi's performance brought a sigh of relief, because the two other starting pitchers, Masahiro Tanaka and Kenta Maeda, have yet to show their top form, partly because they've struggled with the slippery WBC ball.