The 5th WBC ended in dramatic fashion, with Samurai Japan winning for the third time. In the semifinal against Mexico, an extreme defensive shift failed and the team took a 3-run lead, but in the bottom of the 7th inning, Masanao Yoshida got a hit and tied the score.
Noriyuki Shiroishi, head of home defense, base running and strategy coach for Samurai Japan, was deeply touched. Before I suggested he take on a shift, he was tormented by a slowly growing sense of responsibility.
However, you could say that it was Shiroishi’s nice under-the-radar play that led to the game-tying home run.
Continued from the second article, “Genda’s fracture”, “Roki’s 3 runs”… Coach Noriyuki Shiroishi can still talk about “Behind the scenes of the WBC semifinal against Mexico”’.
That guy is the only one who can replace Murakami No. 4, which he cannot hit.
Let’s rewind the clock to the eve of the quarter-finals against Italy.
Samurai Japan won all four games in the first round, but it was a big miscalculation that Munetaka Murakami, ranked at No. 4, had a slow batting average of .143. If we lose from the next game onwards, it’s over. Should they trust the players who will see Samurai Japan’s future through to the end, or will they have to make a ruthless decision to win? For leaders, how to use Murakami was becoming a matter of concern.
Shiroishi was thinking too. This is what I thought about the reason for Murakami’s poor health.
Coach Noriyuki Shiroishi looks back on those days/Modern Business
“I think having (Shohei) Ohtani at No. 3 was a huge factor. I don’t think a batsman in front of me had ever hit a ball like that before. Also, I wasn’t in good shape, so I had to “Play with the batsman before me. It also happened (in the match against South Korea) that he was forced to avoid the match. I think he was mentally shaken. But I don’t think he would admit it.”‘
Murakami had paid special attention to Otani even before the main match began. He practices batting before warm-up games. Otani, the youngest Triple Crown winner in NPB history, hit balls one after another with such tremendous force he felt small.
His comment (March 4): “I have no words. There were many things I heard for the first time,” can be read as an expression of frustration or a sense of crisis. The “fluctuation” of feelings highlighted by Shiroishi may have begun at this moment.
If so, who can be given the role of No. 3 Otani? Yoshida caught Shiroishi’s attention.
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