WBSC Premier12 2024: Japan not ruling the game just yet, USA skipper Mike Scioscia says
Behind a 26-game winning streak, Samurai Japan have reached another final at the Premier12 in Tokyo while USA are playing for bronze. But the score isn't settled quite yet, the US says.
Baseball Softball
Only one team from the World Baseball Classic and Tokyo 2020 Olympic finals made it to the Premier 12 final on Sunday (24 November) in Tokyo. And it wasn’t USA.
While tournament hosts Japan have won all seven of their games in the two rounds - including Friday’s dramatic 9-6 victory over Venezuela that ran their international win streak to an impressive 26 games - the United States have not been quite as sharp.
Mike Scioscia’s troops won their first game of the Super Round on Saturday, a gutsy 6-5 victory over Venezuela thanks to Ryan Ward’s game-winning solo shot in the top of the ninth inning.
But it proved to be too little, too late for the Americans, who are headed to the bronze-medal game alongside Venezuela after losing their first two games at Tokyo Dome against Japan and Chinese Taipei, the two finalists.
A US-Japan final could’ve been a ratings killer. But now it’ll have to wait until the 2026 WBC.
Mikie Scioscia: Competitive parity 'a beautiful thing for baseball'
The presence of major league players would completely change the proposition, but Japan have clearly been the better team compared to the US at this edition of Premier12.
Take away the six runs they coughed up to Venezuela on Friday and on average, Japan have allowed less than three runs per game at the tournament, giving themselves a chance every time they take the field against the quality of pitching here, which is less than elite.
USA, on the other hand, seem to have beaten themselves once too often, especially their bullpen. Even in Saturday’s win, Darrell Thompson allowed a game-tying three-run homer to Diego Castillo before Ward worked his heroics.
Having beaten them at seemingly every crucial turn, are Japan pulling away from the US? Scioscia refutes that notion, saying the sample size of a single competition - in particular without the big leaguers - is too small to draw any conclusion from.
Scioscia points to last year’s WBC final - when his former Los Angeles Angels players Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout met in a fairy-tale last at-bat with the championship on the line - saying that when both teams are at full-strength, the game can go either way.
“I think there are terrific ballplayers in the United States, as well as Japan,” said Scioscia, who led his country to a silver medal at Tokyo 2020. “That WBC came as close as you could get, Ohtani coming in against Trout. I mean that's a storybook ending and Shohei struck him out.
“So I know there's parity. I don't think that gap's that big, as far as when we talk about the WBC. What our challenge is in a lot of international tournaments is finding guys that aren't on our 40-man rosters in the United States and filling out a team with talented guys like Ryan.
“The players in Japan are terrific baseball players. They're very talented, they're fundamentally sound and it shows, the way they're playing. They're playing very good international baseball.
“I don't know if there's as much of a gap as maybe it’s perceived. And in a short series like a WBC or the tournament here, sometimes it's tough to see exactly how big the gap is.”
Scioscia said the true winner of this tussle for global bragging rights is the sport of baseball itself as we enter a new cycle towards the LA28 Olympic Games.
“All I can tell you is there are terrific baseball players in Japan, great baseball players in the United States, great baseball players in Mexico, great baseball players in (Republic of) Korea and (Chinese Taipei).
“I think it's a beautiful thing for baseball. It's a great sport and the whole world is playing in it. It continues to spread. I think that's what's important in the future as we look at international baseball.”