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Live from PETCO Park! This game is also on ESPN and ESPN Deportes.
The last semifinal will be round three of Japan versus Korea.
These teams first met on March 5 at the Tokyo Dome. Japan took a 2-1 lead into the eighth when Seung-Yeop Lee belted a 2-run homer off of Hirotoshi Ishii to give Korea a 3-2 win.
The teams met again Wednesday and the stakes were higher as the winner would get a spot in the semifinals and the loser would need help to advance. And this time it has Jong-Beom Lee who delivered the big hit in the eighth, with a 2-run double to give Korea a 2-1 win. But Japan got the help they needed when México beat the USA 2-1 Thursday.
So, the top two teams in Asia battle it out to see who will face Cuba in Monday night's finale.
Korea will start Jae Weong Seo, who raised some eyebrows when he planted a Korean flag on the pitching mound at Angel Stadium after Korea's win Wednesday. Seo has given up just one run in nine innings of work and is 2-0 in the WBC. Korea's pitchers have an ERA of 1.33 and the team has committed no errors.
Japan will start Koji Uehara, who has given up three runs in 10 innings with no walks. Japanese pitchers have walked just 10 batters in their first six games. Korean pitchers have walked 17 batters. However Japan has surrendered seven home runs and Korea has given up only five.
The rational part of me tells me that the winner of this game will be decided by whoever has the most talent. But the extremely talented teams of the USA, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are all gone. Right now, rationality has little to do with predicting who will win. Just pick a team to root for and sit back and hope for the best.
FINAL SCORE Japan 6, Korea 0
WP -- Koji Uehara
LP -- Byung Doo Jun
HRs -- Kosuke Fukudome (his 2nd), Hitoshi Tamura (his 3rd)
Uehara throws seven innings of shutout ball as Japan finally beats Korea in the touranment. And at the most opportune time. Japan will face Cuba in the championship game Monday night at 6 pm PT.
A 2-run pinch homer by Kosuke Fukudome in the seventh off of Byung-Hyun Kim highlighted a five-run inning.
Korea finishes the tournament with a 6-1 record and made no errors. Japan is 4-3 and will take on 5-2 Cuba.
JAPAN
Aoki CF
Nishioka 2B
Ichiro RF
Matsunaka DH
Tamura LF
Imae 3B
Ogasawara 1B
Satozaki C
Kawasaki SS
KOREA
BK Lee LF
JB Lee CF
SY Lee 1B
Choi DH
JY Lee RF
BH Lee 3B
J Park SS
Cho C
M Kim 2B
Ed Hickcox is calling the balls and strikes.
Soooo many comments I could make now but Bob's I suspect is also a family blog :-X
I'm using that because I want to see the end of the UCLA-Alabama basketball game.
Please ignore.
Just call him "Guts".
And Morgan called him "Pawk". Don't make it harder on yourself than you have to, Joe.
JY Lee played the corner pretty well there. We've already had two doubles among three hits tonight after the day game with the presumably bigger guys just coming up with 20 singles. And a lot of those were pretty cheap.
The WBC was set up this year so that the USA would be playing a Caribbean team in the final.
Just didn't work out that way.
Despite Davidson's best efforts.
The Japanese helmets are like the ones the Yomiuri Giants wear:
http://www.giants.jp/pts/pictures/img4839.jpg
That's just the finish they have on them. They don't have pine tar on the top. That wouldn't be a particularly Japanese thing to do.
23398.5. Any on-sale license, issued pursuant to this division that authorizes the sale of wine, also authorizes the sale of soju, an imported Korean alcoholic beverage that contains not more than 24 percent of alcohol by volume and is derived from agricultural products.
It's considered "wine" in New York and California only.
Choi has never homered in PETCO. Neither has Ichiro.
Do those come with airfare for out-of-staters?
That ended once the Soviets got the A-bomb.
Oh - gah - sah - wah - rah
Or that he left the batter's box too soon.
you see.. once you give up a homerun, you lose a lot of confidence...
Was it Steve McQueen who played Cincinnati Red?
Just the "Cincinnati Kid".
In those days, when you played high stakes poker, you played five card stud!
"You owe me $50,000, Kid."
The crowd is still chanting "Dai Han Min-Gook".
But 4-0 is a big hill to climb.
Seems like this is something that needs work, and not just because we've all grown so attached to Korea...
for real.. wow.. that's surprising
If the pitchers are just a tad off and give up a few runs, then you might as well just write the game off.
Wow, a rain delay. They don't do that in Asia most of the time. They just play through it.
I'll watch a "What's My Line?" rerun.
He's forcing me to make sure my bed is made because he will bit my feet if they stick out from under the sheets.
Little stinker...One of our cats likes to bite our feet to wake us up. Luckily, this fiendish ploy only works in the summer, when our bedding is sufficiently thin.
I think that news has broken.
"Ostuka ... still in the big leagues."
No respect for the Rangers!
Sorry Coachjpark and everybody else who was rooting for Korea, it was a fun ride while it lasted and Korea has definitely opened a few eyes these past several weeks.
I bought 1000 tickets in the RF Pavilion. I need some people willing to go...
http://www.parksplace.org/dodgers.html
Are you Charlie Sheen and trying to guarantee a home run ball?
+
My company reimburses me for getting people to go to the event
=
Win/Win Situation + Free Dodger Tickets for people....
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