The noise inside the Tokyo Dome was deafening. And it wasn’t just Japanese fans – some estimates suggest more than 10,000 of the 42,000 crowd were Taiwanese. MLB offers much, but it cannot match this kind of atmosphere.
Taiwan, bruised after yesterday’s 3–0 defeat to Australia, rallied with three undeniable facts:
- They are the second-ranked team in the world.
- They are the reigning Premier12 champions.
- They ended Japan’s 27-game unbeaten streak.
Much has been written about Japan’s roster being weaker than in 2023 – Shohei Ohtani isn’t pitching, Roki Sasaki isn’t even on the team. If the hosts wanted a fast start, they got it.
Ohtani hit a 117 mph double off the very first pitch – only seven players hit 118+ in MLB last season. Taiwan’s starter Hao-Chun Cheng needed 26 pitches to escape the inning, but he didn’t allow a run.
By contrast, Dodgers World Series hero Yoshinobu Yamamoto required just 10 pitches to retire the side.
The second inning was pure theatre, but not particularly entertaining for the Taiwanese contingent. White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami walked, Shugo Maki singled, and defensive wizard Sosuke Genda was hit by a pitch to load the bases. After Kenya Wakatsuki popped up for the first out, the stage was set for Ohtani.
Bases loaded. Ball destroyed. Grand Slam.
Kensuke Kondo grounded out for the second out. At the previous WBC, he’d slashed .346/.500/.615 – today, he was 0-for-5 and failed to get on base.
Bases empty, two out.
Seiya Suzuki drew a walk and sprinted home to score on a Masataka Yoshida double. Yoshida was sensational during the last WBC and was brilliant again today. Why did the Red Sox break him?
Japan continued the two-out bombard with a procession of walk, single, score.
Kazuma Okamoto walks. Murakami singles. Yoshida scores. Maki walks. Genda singles. Murakami scores.
It was death by one Grand Slam and a thousand cuts.
After Wakatsuki drove Okamoto home to make it 9–0, the stage was set again for Ohtani
With his third hard-hit ball of the day (and we’ve still only had five outs), Ohtani singled to take the score to double-digits.
A walk and a fielding error kept Yamamoto on the mound longer than he wanted. A mound meeting suggested he’d be pulled before exceeding 50 pitches – the threshold for four days’ mandatory rest – but he continued, finally leaving on 53 pitches after loading the bases. An-Ko Lin finished the inning cleanly.
Then came another Ohtani spectacle: hitting for the cycle at the start of the fourth. The earliest anyone has done that in MLB is Mike Lansing on June 18, 2000, at Coors Field – in the fourth inning. Darius Austin with the info.
If anything, it was an anti-climax, as Ohtani lined out at 87 mph. Maybe he was tiring?
By the fifth inning, Japan only needed two more runs and a clean bottom half to trigger the Mercy Rule. They didn’t score, but the crowd erupted when Cleveland’s non-roster invitee Stuart Fairchild – a sixth-team-in-five-years journeyman whose mother is Taiwanese — lofted a potential three-run homer. On review, it drifted just wide of the left-field foul pole. The Dome went wild anyway.
The game drifted to its inevitable end, with the Mercy Rule coming into effect at the bottom of the seventh inning.
FINAL SCORE: JAPAN 13–0 TAIWAN
The reigning champions threw down the gauntlet. To stop them from a fourth WBC title, the USA, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela will need their A+ games — because an A game won’t be enough.
For Taiwan, the reality is harsh. Mathematically, they aren’t out. Realistically, they face the very real prospect of dropping out of world baseball’s elite for the second consecutive WBC. Their clash with Czechia – 3:00 am UK time on Saturday – feels like a must-win. The loser will likely be back in the qualifiers.
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