The game was supposed to only be a dress rehearsal for next year's World Baseball Classic. But the atmosphere during the ninth inning at Tokyo Dome made it feel a whole lot like the real thing.
A game of late, wild momentum shifts finally settled in Japan's favor when Shota Ono hit a sayonara single in the 10th inning to give his team a 9-8 win over the Netherlands in the 2016 Samurai Japan Challenge on Saturday night at the Big Egg.
"It doesn't really feel real," Ono said. "Like did I really do that? I was hoping it would drop. Because (pitcher Toshiya) Okada was doing so well, I wanted to win it there."