Atsunori Inaba was hired to manage Samurai Japan in 2017 with the expectation the first-time skipper would grow into the job over the ensuing years and deliver baseball-mad Japan its first Olympic gold medal in the sport at the Tokyo Games. He won his first international competition in 2017 and his most recent — the Premier12 — in 2019.

All that's left now is the big one.

Inaba revealed the Samurai Japan squad for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday, with Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles pitcher Masahiro Tanaka among the headliners.