"The pitcher at the Tokyo Olympics." I also remembered Ko Young-pyo's Korea-Japan match, the starting pitcher for the Korea-Japan match. Will it be another strikeout of a daily slugger and strikeout '5 years ago?' [2026 WBC]

*This content was translated by AI.

Japan was also well aware of Ko Young-pyo (35, KT Wiz), who is starting pitcher for the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC) Korea-Japan match.

Japanese media Sankei Sports said on the 7th (Korea Standard Time), "Japan will be starting pitcher Yusei Kikuchi (35, LA Angels) and Korea will be starting pitcher for Korea-Japan match." "Ko Young-pyo is nicknamed a special submarine in Korea. He once started in the Korea-Japan match of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and scored two runs in five innings.

The Korea-Japan match that the Japanese media came to mind is the semi-final against Japan at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics held in 2021 after being postponed for a year due to COVID-19. Ko Young-pyo, who started at the time, showed impressive performance with six hits, one walk, seven strikeouts and two runs in five innings.

The opposing lineup was a slugger with hitters who entered the Major League in the future, including Masataka Yoshida (Boston Red Sox), Seiya Suzuki (Chicago Cubs), and Munetaka Murakami (Chicago White Sox).

At this time, Ko Young-pyo drew a tight race by allowing the main weapon change-up to spin the bat of the opponent's right-handed hitters with sophisticated control of 61 pitches out of a total of 91 pitches. Since then, the bullpen has lost 2-5 due to arson, and finished fourth in the final, but Ko Young-pyo's good pitching has also been imprinted in the minds of the Japanese media.

At the time, Japanese commentator and columnist Koichi Kimura said, "Japanese hitters struggled with Ko Young-pyo's anomalous pitching. "It was like throwing it outside to bring out the bat while making right-handed hitters such as Seiya Suzuki and Hideto Amamura conscious of their bodies," he said.

"The unpredictable pitch worked properly and Japan scored the first point, but it failed to completely destroy Ko Young-pyo. If he had scored three more points in the third inning, the Korean bench's pitching operation would have collapsed early on. "If I had brought down Ko Young-pyo early, I would have been able to run the game with a much easier development," he pointed out.

It was Hideto Asamura, the NPB's 306 home run slugger, who struggled in particular. Even though Asamura was in the fifth clean-up batting order, he failed to use his strength in Ko Young-pyo's change-up, and eventually became a stumbling block to the lineup with four strikeouts in four at-bats.

Of course, it is true that this tournament's batting lineup is more threatening than then. The Japanese batters, led by Shohei Ohtani (LA Dodgers), with only five major league hitters, defeated Taiwan 13-0 the previous day (6th) with 13 long and short hits.

However, coach Ryu Ji-hyun (55) also relies on Ko Young-pyo's colorful pitching and unique trajectory change-up. Ko Young-pyo, who suffered from the introduction of the automatic pitch reading system (ABS) in 2024 and injuries, rebounded with 11 wins and 8 losses with a 3.30 ERA and 154 strikeouts in 161 innings in 29 games last year.

In particular, as an ace who led KT's postseason several times with only 1.68 walks per nine innings, boldness is expected to pitch unabashedly against Japanese sluggers. In addition, the South Korean batters also show their ability to score 11 points on long and short hits against the Czech Republic, raising expectations for a game on par with Kikuchi, whose ball control is weak.

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*This content was translated by AI.