Tag Archives: Tokyo Dome

March is my time, too

As Japan’s players this past week began their quest to win the World Baseball Classic for the fourth time in six tries, many of them have been sporting T-shirts that read “March is our time.”

I ought to get one of those.

Because of the WBC, I got on the field in Japan this past week without any of the groveling Nippon Professional Baseball teams expected from me last year after I left my cushy day job at Kyodo News.

Since last year’s MLB openers at Tokyo Dome, MLB has tasked its longtime promotion partner here, the Yomiuri Shimbun Sports Business Department, to handle media credentialing. Because of that switch, field access, where reporters can randomly access players and coaches in unsupervised spaces, has been severely curtailed.

Continue reading March is my time, too

Yoshida homer lifts Japan past Australia

Japan clinched the top spot in World Baseball Classic Pool C on Sunday with a 4-3 win over a tenacious Australia squad at Tokyo Dome, where Masataka Yoshida turned the game around with a seventh-inning two-run homer.

Japan, which hours earlier had clinched second and a spot in the WBC quarterfinals for the sixth-straight time, drew 12 walks in the game but also stranded nine runners through the first six innings as both teams’ pitchers repeatedly worked out of jams.

Australia (2-1) was poised to escape the seventh unscathed with a 1-0 lead after a Shohei Ohtani leadoff walk, but a failure to turn two brought Yoshida to the plate with one on and two outs. Yoshida, who set a WBC record with 13 RBIs in 2023, got his sixth of this tourney by blasting a low 1-0 pitch from lefty Jon Kennedy for his second homer in two games.

“Since our exhibitions and in these three games, Yoshida has been remarkably hot in the clutch,” Japan manager Hirokazu Ibata said.

Continue reading Yoshida homer lifts Japan past Australia