It was such a humiliation for the Japanese pitchers.
Shunsuke Watanabe beaned three batters in his start against South Korea, and all
in all, Team Japan's starting pitchers had flawed performances in the first round of the World
Baseball Classic at Tokyo Dome.
Not just Hirotoshi Ishii's performance in the top of the eighth inning, in which he gave up a game-winning homer to Lee Seung Yeop, in Team Japan's 3-2 loss to Korea on March 5, but the whole pitching staff in the "Hinomaru" uniform has yet to show its best pitching in the World Baseball Classic.