ＷＢＣ２００９、日本チーム分析

ＥＳＰＮより抜粋。 注目選手は、ダルビッシュ、岩隈、藤川。問題点は、リリーフ専門の投手が少ないこと。 1. Japan The defending World Baseball Classic champions is the only WBC team with active major leaguers on its roster that are not necessarily the best players on the team. That's not a slight against Ichiro Suzuki, Daisuke Matsuzaka or Akinori Iwamura, all of whom helped lead Japan to the inaugural WBC title in 2006. Rather, Nippon Professional Baseball offers the highest level of play outside of the US, and the Japanese WBC squad is an All-Star team taken from those ranks. This gives the Japanese team the luxury of batting the Rays' Iwamura and Cubs' Kosuke Fukudome toward the bottom of the order and benching Mariners catcher Kenji Johjima in favor of Yomiuri Giants slugging backstop Shinnosuke Abe. Japan has a deep, heavily left-handed lineup with equal parts speed and power, but what fuels the hopes of a repeat is Japan's pitching staff led by Matsuzaka and 22-year-old sensation Yu Darvish of the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. Right-handed starter Hisashi Iwakuma is coming off a dominant season for the Rakuten Golden Eagles (21-4, 1.87 ERA). Closer Kyuji Fujikawa, who didn't allow a run in the 2006 WBC, is coming off a four-year run of staggering dominance for the Hanshin Tigers (25-7, 1.12 ERA, 6.38 K/BB). If Japan's staff has a drawback, it's that all but three of its 12 pitchers are starters unaccustomed warming up quickly and coming in with men on base. Then again, given the pitch-limits being enforced (70 pitches in the first round, 85 in the second, 100 in the semi-finals and finals), Japan might just use two starters in tandem for their games in the first two rounds, reserving their three relievers in the highest-leverage situations.