{"id":527315,"date":"2026-03-08T19:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/527315\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T19:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T19:21:12","slug":"japan-rallies-late-to-beat-australia-behind-masataka-yoshida-hr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/527315\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan rallies late to beat Australia behind Masataka Yoshida HR"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defending champion Japan became the first nation to clinch a quarterfinal berth in the World Baseball Classic then rallied on Masataka Yoshida<\/a>‘s two-run homer in the seventh inning to beat Australia 4-3 on Sunday night and assure first place in its first-round group.<\/p>\n

Japan clinched advancement earlier Sunday when South Korea lost to Chinese Taipei 5-4 in 10 innings. Japan’s win clinched first place in Group C for Shohei Ohtani<\/a> and the Samurai Warriors (3-0).<\/p>\n

After completing the group Tuesday with a game against Czechia (0-3), Japan will travel to Miami for a quarterfinal on Saturday. Australia can clinch a quarterfinal spot by beating South Korea (1-2) on Monday.<\/p>\n

Japan starter Tomoyuki Sugano<\/a> pitched four scoreless innings of four-hit ball, but Australia (2-1) went ahead with an unearned run in the sixth against winner Chihiro Sumida. Aaron Whitefield doubled, stole third and came home on catcher Kenya Wakatsuki’s throwing error.<\/p>\n

Masataka Yoshida’s seventh-inning home run helped keep Japan undefeated at the World Baseball Classic.\u00a0Jiji Press\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Japan had loaded the bases in the fourth when, with Ohtani at the plate, Shugo Maki was picked off at second by catcher Robbie Perkins.<\/p>\n

Ohtani walked on four pitches from Jon Kennedy to lead off the seventh, one of 12 walks by Australia pitchers, and Yoshida pulled a low slider into the right-center field seats for a 2-1 lead. Yoshida has 19 RBIs in WBC play, third behind a pair of Cubans, Frederich Cepeda (23) and Alfredo Despaigne (21).<\/p>\n

Teruaki Sato added an RBI in the eighth against Ky Hampton, who forced in a run with a bases-loaded walk to Seiya Suzuki<\/a> for a 4-1 lead.<\/p>\n

Alex Hall and Rixon Wingrove hit ninth-inning homers off Taisei Ota, who retired Robbie Perkins on a game-ending groundout for his second save.<\/p>\n

Earlier Sunday, Kun-Yu Chiang bunted home Chieh-Hsien Chen for the go-ahead run in the top of the 10th for Chinese Taipei, which completed the group at 2-2.<\/p>\n

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South Korea’s Ju Won Kim was thrown out at the plate in the bottom half on Hyeseong Kim<\/a>‘s grounder, with first baseman Nien-Ting Wu throwing to catcher Shao-Hung Chiang. Jyun-Yue Tseng retired Do Yeong Kim on a flyout for the save.<\/p>\n

Yu Chang and Tsung-Che Chen had solo homers for Chinese Taipei, and Stuart Fairchild<\/a> hit a two-run drive for a 4-3 lead in the eighth, his second home run of the tournament after a grand slam against Czechia.<\/p>\n

“That was one of the most fun games I’ve ever played in my life,” said Fairchild, an outfielder in the Cleveland Guardians<\/a> organization whose mother is from Chinese Taipei.<\/p>\n

Do Yeong Kim hit an RBI double in the bottom half that drove in Hyeseong Kim.<\/p>\n

Winner Yi Chang got the final out of the ninth. Woo-Suk Go took the loss.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defending champion Japan became the first nation to clinch a quarterfinal berth in the World Baseball Classic then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-527315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}