The first round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) was too narrow a stage for Shohei Otani (29, LA Angels), a Japanese “superstar”.
Japan won 7-1 in the final match against Australia in Group B held at the Tokyo Dome on the 12th, and ended the first round with a 4-game victory. He scored 38 points and lost 8 points in a total of 4 games, boasting a higher level of power in both pitching and hitting, and easily grabbed the ticket to the quarterfinals. 윈 토토
At the heart of the Japanese national team is Ohtani.
Ohtani, who emerged as a top star while pitching for the Los Angeles Angels of the American Major League (MLB), is the same in this tournament. He started against China on the 9th and showed good pitching with only 1 hit and no run in 4 innings. The top speed of his four-seam fastball was 161 km/h.
The performance of ‘batter Ohtani’ was even more remarkable. He added a hit, an RBI and a walk every game he played. Ohtani recorded a batting average of 0.500 (6 hits in 12 at-bats) and 8 RBIs in 4 games. On top of that, he picked up 7 walks and had a high on-base percentage of 0.684. More than half of his hits were slugging (three doubles and one home run). The combined OPS of on-base percentage and slugging percentage (1.000) is 1.684.
Ohtani is the 2021 American League unanimous MVP. Last year, for the first time in MLB history, he achieved both innings and at-bats. He caught the attention of baseball fans around the world with his pitching talent that seemed to come out of a cartoon. In the first round of the WBC, where the power gap between the teams was wide, Ohtani played a big role in every game.