Japan, the baseball at the Tokyo Olympics, will face the United States in the final held at Yokohama Stadium from 7 pm on the 7th.

Japan aims to be the first gold medal in a formal competition.

Starting pitcher Japan is Morishita America is Softbank Martinez

The starting pitcher in Japan is Nobuhito Morishita, 23 years old.


In the second round of the qualifying league against Mexico on the 31st of last month, he scored two goals in five innings and became a winning pitcher.


Director Atsunori Inaba plans to have all nine remaining pitchers on standby for relief, except for pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who started in the semifinals three days ago.



In addition, Seiya Suzuki, who has been suffering from 1 hit in 15 at bats so far, is expected to continue to be appointed as No. 4 with the idea that the batting order will not change as the batting order is functioning so far.


In the practice before the final, I was working on correcting batting with the advice of Director Inaba.


We are paying attention to whether Suzuki can respond to the commander's wishes and inspire him in the final.



On the other hand, in the United States, two people who play professional baseball in Japan hold the key to throwing the gold medal since the 2000 Sydney Games.


First is Softbank pitcher Nick Martinez.


This season, he marked 7 wins and 2 losses and an ERA of 2.03 in the first half of the game.


In the second round of the qualifying league against South Korea on the 31st of last month, he threw five innings and threw four hits and one run.



Martinez has also played for Nippon Ham for three years from 2018 to last year and has played against all the batters of the Japanese national team.


Of these, Hideto Asamura is good at pitching Martinez with 22 at bats, 9 hits, 3 home runs, and a batting average of 40%.


In addition, Tetsuto Yamada is expected to hit 3 hits in 3 at bats including a home run from pitcher Martinez in the interleague game on June 12th.



And it is Tyler Austin who plays at DeNA that needs to be vigilant in the American batting line.


This tournament is doing well with 21 at bats, 9 hits, 2 home runs, and a batting average of 40%, 2 minutes, and 9 hits at the top of the team.



Japan will challenge the United States, the home country of baseball, with the "speed and power" and pitcher power that Director Inaba advocates.

Japan's past results list "Gold" Los Angeles tournament is "open competition"

<1984 Los Angeles (open competition)> Gold medal


<1988 Seoul (public competition)> Silver medal


<1992 Barcelona> Bronze medal


<1996 Atlanta> Silver medal


<2000 Sydney> 4th place


<2004 Athens> Bronze medal


<2008 Beijing> 4th