Nikkan Sports, a Japanese sports magazine, predicted in an article on the internet today (29th) that Darvish Yu will pitch as a starting pitcher in the World Baseball Classic (WBC) against Korea, which will face off for the first time in 14 years.

The newspaper reports that the Japanese baseball team will be pitching in the first round of the WBC Group B finals in March, with Shohei Ohtani (Los Angeles Angels) – Darvish (San Diego Padres) – Rocky Sasaki (Chiba Lotte Marines) – Yoshinobu Yamamoto (Orix Buffalo). S) will be put on the mound as a starter in turn.

Japan will face off against China, Korea, the Czech Republic, and Australia in order in the first round of the finals held at the Tokyo Dome on March 9-13.

Nikkan Sports predicts that Ohtani will start in the first game against relatively weak China, and Darvish, an experienced veteran and the best player of the Japanese national team, will face the fateful match between Korea and Japan on March 10 at 7:00 pm.

According to the WBC pitch rule, Ohtani and Darvish only throw a maximum of 65 in the first round.

You can throw up to 80 in the quarterfinals and up to 95 in the semifinals and beyond.

If Japan finishes in second place in their group, they will play Group A in the quarterfinals on March 16th.

Japan national team coach Hideki Kuriyama plans to finalize the starting rotation based on the quarterfinals, so both Ohtani and Darvish can pitch in the quarterfinals.

Darvish’s appearance in the Korea-Japan match is predicted because of his experience. Darvish made five appearances as a relief and starter in the 2009 WBC, when Japan won the top spot.

Darvish precedes Ohtani in terms of throwing experience in big matches.

The Korean national team, which put their life and death on the line for their first game against Australia on March 9, has yet to decide on a pitcher for the game against Australia or against Japan.

In line with the past experience that left-handed pitchers are effective in Japan, interest is in whether left-handed pitchers such as Kim Gwang-hyun (SSG Landers), Yang Hyeon-jong and Lee Eui-ri (KIA Tigers), Koo Chang-mo (NC Dinos), and Kim Yun-sik (LG Twins) will rise to the mound one after another. .

Meanwhile, Japanese national team coach Kuriyama criticized major league clubs for delaying their players’ participation in WBC national team training until early March.

Coach Kuriyama said, “To make the WBC a really good tournament, we need to allow major leaguers to participate more freely in the national team to increase the value of the tournament.”

Prior to the opening of spring camp in mid-February, the MLB club instructed its players to train for the team until the end of February and then compete in the WBC. 먹튀검증

In the sense of minimizing the period of players’ participation in the WBC, it brought criticism for prioritizing the MLB industry over the WBC.

As a result, the keystone combination of the Korean national team, such as Ha-seong Kim (San Diego) and Tommy Edman (St. Louis Cardinals), as well as Darvish, Ohtani, Seiya Suzuki (Chicago Cubs), Lars Nutba (St. Louis), and Masataka Yoshida (Boston Red Sox), outfielder ) and other Japanese players can only join the team in early March, right before the finals.