Tokyo, Japan (My Sportsbook) - Japan starts defense of its World Baseball Classic title today, as it begins Pool A play against China at the Tokyo Dome.
Japan rode the right arm of a relatively-unknown Daisuke Matsuzaka to a WBC title in 2006, upending unbeaten Korea in the semifinals before disposing of Cuba, 10-6, in a thrilling championship game at Petco Park.
Matsuzaka became a household name at the 2006 event, as he won all three of his starts while pitching to a 1.38 earned run average on his way to MVP honors. Of course, Dice K's performance led to a monster six-year contract with the Boston Red Sox nine months later.
The 28-year-old Matsuzaka is again back for the WBC, along with other major leaguers such as Seattle outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, Chicago Cubs outfielder Kosuke Fukudome and Tampa Bay infielder Akinori Iwamura.
Manager Tatsunori Hara, who takes over for legendary home run king Sadaharu Oh, will give the ball in Game 1 to 22-year-old right-hander Yu Darvish, who is the country's best pitcher now that Matsuzaka is in the United States. Darvish has electric stuff and most think this will be his coming-out party on the international stage, similar to Dice-K's in '06.
Darvish was 16-4 with a 1.88 ERA last season for the Nippon Ham Fighters. However, in his only previous international experience at the Beijing Olympics, he gave up four runs on seven hits in four innings as Japan was beaten 4-2 by Cuba in the preliminary round.
China, meanwhile, will be led by former major league manager Terry Collins, who guides a squad that will feature no current big league players.
Still a neophyte in the baseball world, China lost all three of its WBC games in 2006 by a combined score of 40-6. They allowed 14.40 runs per nine innings in these matches and batted a mere .185.
Things went a little smoother at the Beijing Games, despite a poor 1-6 showing. China was relatively competitive in every matchup and was perhaps over-aggressive at times, which almost led to a brawl in its contest with the United States.
Opposing Darvish this evening will likely be right-hander Lu Jiangang, who will have the unenviable task of slowing down a Japanese team who put up 18 runs and mercy-ruled China in the eighth inning of the 2006 WBC.
Whichever team loses Game 1 goes on to play the team that loses Friday's Game 2 between Korea and Chinese Taipei on Saturday. The winners of the first two games will then meet in Game 4 later in the day on Saturday.
