The head coach's concentration fire on the 'catastrophe' of elimination from the Japanese quarterfinals, "Why didn't Otani use pitcher! Yamamoto, why did you get off early!"

*This content was translated by AI.

Japanese baseball suffered a 'catastrophic' in Miami. The glory of winning the championship three years ago was nowhere to be seen. The arrow of defeat went straight to Japanese national team coach Hirokazu Ibata (51)'s "time to replace pitchers" and "use entry."

The Japanese baseball team, led by head coach Ibata, lost to Venezuela 5-8 in the quarterfinals of the 2026 WBC (World Baseball Classic) at Rondipo Park in Miami, Florida at 10 a.m. on the 15th (Korea time).

He failed to keep his 5-2 lead and suffered a come-from-behind loss and was eliminated. It was a shocking early Red Card for Japan, which was considered the 0th favorite. It was the first failure of Japanese baseball to advance to the semifinals of the WBC.

The biggest controversy at the official press conference right after the end of the game was when Japanese starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto was replaced. Yamamoto was effectively blocking Venezuela's batters by throwing only 69 pitches until the fourth inning. It was enough to keep the mound in the fifth inning, but manager Ibata's choice was a steel plate. Yamamoto hit a lot of long balls, but he allowed four hits (one home run), one walk, five strikeouts, and two runs in four innings.

In the end, Chihiro Sumida, who took the mound as the next pitcher after Yamamoto, was hit hard by the Venezuelan lineup, providing an excuse for the reversal. Questions from on-site reporters poured in. Manager Ibata said, "I didn't want to put too much burden on the pitching staff," adding, "In the beginning, I was thinking about 60 pitches to Yamamoto as the pitch limit. I decided that was the limit." In other words, the decision to make the ace early in the match ended up being poisonous. This suggests that there was a limit on the number of pitches by the Dodgers.

Questions also continued about the appointment of Otani Shohei (32, LA Dodgers) as a pitcher. When he pointed out that he should have cut off the flow by putting Ohtani, a "diryu," on the mound in a crisis situation, manager Ibata said, "We didn't have the option to use Ohtani as a pitcher in the middle of the game. Of course, I wanted him to throw, but I didn't have a choice." Rather than mentioning specific restrictions such as agreements with the Dodgers or conditions for managing the player's condition, he only reiterated the principle that he had no choice.

Some pointed out that there was no way he won the world with his overwhelming pitching power three years ago. Manager Ibata said, "The opposing teams' skills have improved overall," but added, "I felt the difference in power as I watched our pitchers' fastball continue to be beaten by Venezuelan batters. Rather than relying on breaking balls, the task is to develop the power of fastball, he analyzed.

Finally, Ibata said, "It was very difficult to make the team in a short period of time. I hope this defeat will serve as the foundation for the development of Japanese baseball. I'll come back in three years," he said, bowing his head. However, the "responsibility theory" toward Ibata is expected to be fierce for a while, from the entry composition to the failure of pitcher replacement, which lacked top bullpen resources such as Tyra Kaima (Seibu Lions), Ishi's Daichi (Hanshin Tigers), and Matsui Yuki (San Diego Padres).

<© STARNEWS. All rights reserved. No reproduction or redistribution allowed.>

*This content was translated by AI.