Park Chan-ho To Start Against Japan

The Korean national team has asked Park Chan-ho (San Diego Padres) to lead them to the World Baseball Classic semifinals.

After collecting three saves as the team’s closer, Park will start for Korea against Japan in their game at Anaheim Stadium on March 16 at noon, Korea time. The game will be broadcast live on MBC.

If Japan had failed to defeat Mexico on March 15, Korea would have advanced to the semifinals automatically. But now that neither team has a safety net to fall back on, the competition is bound to be fierce.

During an interview with reporters at the Anaheim Marriott, Korean team manager Kim In-shik repeatedly said, “We’ll do our best.” His “best” apparently means Park Chan-ho as his starter. “We must defeat Japan. That’s why I chose Park Chan-ho as the starter. If he holds them off well for four or five innings, our lefty bullpen will pick up from there, and give us a good chance for victory,” said Kim. “If we lose to Japan by six or more runs, then our goal will be just making the final four. This is baseball, and nobody knows what will happen. But we’ll beat Japan again.”

If Korea beats Japan, Korea and the U.S will become the two semi-finalists in Group One, and Korea will face the U.S. again in the semifinals. If Korea loses to Japan by less than six runs, Korea will play against Japan in the semifinals.

But Kim is choosing to play to win.

The starter on the Japanese team will be Shunsuke Watanabe (Lotte), a sidearm pitcher. Watanabe pitched four and two-thirds innings and allowed only one run against Korea in their previous meeting.