There was an unwelcome analysis for the Korean national team participating in the World Baseball Classic (WBC). A famous data company in Japan has diagnosed that the Korean national team’s batters are very weak against left-handed pitchers who can play in Japanese professional baseball.
‘Data Stadium’, which handles sports data, introduced an analysis on the 7th that the strategic key for the Japanese national team to catch the Korean national team would be ‘use of left-handed pitchers’.
The company noted that although there are veteran left-handed pitchers such as Kim Gwang-hyun and Yang Hyeon-jong in the Korean national team, left-handed pitchers who throw fast balls close to 150 km/h are rare in the entire league. It is predicted that the ability of hitters of the Korean national team to adapt to the ball of the left-handed pitchers of the Japanese national team will decrease.
The two players who played in the Korean-Japanese league in turn were used as a medium for analysis. Outfielder Mel Rojas Jr., who played for KT in the 2020 KBO League and became MVP, but moved to Hanshin, a Japanese professional baseball in the 2021 season, and played an ace-level role in LG in the 2021 season, then moved to Yakult in the 2022 season and became a second-team player. Andrew Suarez’s record change was presented in detail.
Among these, Lohas recorded a batting average of 0.379 against left-handed pitchers in the KBO League in the 2020 season, but in Japan in the 2021 season, the batting average against left-handed pitchers fell to 0.148.
In addition, Suarez recorded a clean record of 10 wins and 2 losses with an average ERA of 2.18 in LG, but when he moved to Japan the following year, he appeared in only 6 games in the first team stage and was kicked out with an average ERA of 6.23.
The record left by the Korean national team at the 2019 Premier12 was also subject to analysis. Korea recorded a batting average of 0.260 against right-handed pitchers in the tournament that year, but its batting average fell to 0.183 against left-handed pitchers.
The Japanese national team includes left-handed pitchers who throw fast balls close to 150 km, such as Shota Imana (Yokohama), Yuki Matsui (Rakuten), and Keiji Takahashi (Yakult). The company diagnosed that these would be very effective for the Korean national team. 메이저놀이터
In fact, there are left-handed pitchers who throw fast balls such as Eui-ri Lee (KIA) and Jin-wook Kim (Lotte) in the KBO League, but most of them are still in their growth phase. Also, although there are ace-level lefties like Gu Chang-mo (NC), it is not often that KBO League hitters meet highly-perfect lefties.
It is time to pay more attention to how this analysis will affect the pitching management of the Japanese national team. First of all, in the match against Korea and Japan in the first round on March 10, right-hander Yu Darvish (San Diego) is said to be a strong starting pitcher in Japan.
