TokioShohei Ohtani covered nearly five innings and bunted in a four-run third inning to lead Japan to a 9-3 victory over Italy on Thursday night, earning their fifth straight World Baseball Classic berth.
Masataka Yoshida, recently signed by the Boston Red Sox, homered and drove in the go-ahead run with a groundout, cementing himself as the tournament leader in RBIs with 10. Kazuma Okamoto hit a three-run homer for Japan, which boasts from a cumulative 47-11 in scoring against their rivals after five games.
Japan flies to Miami to play a semifinal on Monday against Puerto Rico or Mexico. Cuba will play the other semifinal against the United States or Venezuela.
In front of 41,723 rapt fans in the Tokyo Dome, Ohtani threw his fastest pitch since signing with the Los Angeles Angels in 2018, striking out Vinnie Pasquantino with a 102-mph fastball in the sixth. That surpassed the 101.4 mph pitch with which he struck out Houston’s Kyle Tucker on Sept. 10.
Ohtani (2-0) allowed two runs and four hits in 4 2/3 innings, striking out five and walking one. He went 1 for 4 at the plate. He is hitting .438 (16-7) with a home run, three doubles and eight RBIs, plus a 2.08 ERA, 10 strikeouts and a walk from the mound.
The star will have four days off before he can pitch in a potential final on Tuesday – four and a half days, taking into account the time difference.
Ohtani stretched his scoreless streak to 8 2/3 innings until in the fifth he allowed Dominic Fletcher’s single — a light bases-loaded, two-out hit — to right field. That was Ohtani’s 71st and final pitch of the night, nine short of the limit.
Hiromi Itoh relieved and retired Miles Mastrobuoni with a fly ball that Yoshida slammed into the left-field wall.
Japan is the only nation to have reached the semifinals in all five editions of the Classic, winning the first two – 2006 and 2009. The Samurai Warriors were eliminated by Puerto Rico in 2013 and the United States in 2017.
Italy, managed by Mike Pizza, reached the first round for the first time since 2013. Fletcher, a prospect for the Arizona Diamondbacks, drove in all three of Italy’s runs on the night and hit the team’s first home run of the tournament, a solo shot in the eighth against Yu Darvish.
