I believe that SAMURAI JAPAN will win the championship in WBC 2017.
World Baseball Classic, an international meet of baseball, is going to be held in around next March. Japan won the championship in the 1st meet and 2nd meet, but lost the championship in the last meet. I always watch baseball, and I think now Japan can win the championship in the next meet. I’d like to explain the reasons why I think so.
The biggest reason is the strength of pitchers. Japanese pitchers have better ability than players of any other countries. For example there is a pitcher called Shohei Otani in Japan. His fast ball is always around 160km/h, and has very high quality breaking balls. He closed up the Korean batting lineup through the sixth inning perfectly last year. As we know, it’s said that 70% of baseball game is decided by pitcher, so Japanese pitching strength is a big weapon. There are many other good pitchers in Japan, such as Sugano, Maeda, Makita, Norimoto, and so on.
The second reason is high hitting skills and base-running skills. Tetsuto Yamada and Yuki Yanagita who are the best baseball players in Japan achieved the great record called “triple three” last season. If a player records batting average more than .300, hits home runs more than 30 times and steals a base more than 30 times, this is triple three. In the long history of NPB, only 10 players achieved triple three, and two of them are now in the same team as SAMURAI JAPAN! This is a miraculous situation. Japan has suffered from the score power so far, but now in Japan, there are a lot of players who have high batting average and who can steal a base including Yamada and Yanagita.
The third reason is Japanese unique cheering style. Japanese cheer players by singing songs. It’s different from other countries, and it makes the stadium Japanese atmosphere. This seems to be a big power for players.
In conclusion, SAMURAI JAPAN is a wonderful team in every aspect. However, there is a rumor that United States summons Major leaguer, and become serious about WBC. If it is not true, I can believe that SAMURAI JAPAN will win the championship. I want Japanese monster players such as Otani and Yamada to be recognized in the world.