By Paresh Dave
FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) – High-fives abounded for hosts Japan after they staged a thrilling final-inning comeback to defeat the Dominican Republic 4-3 on Wednesday to begin the baseball competition at Tokyo 2020.
Dominican closer Jairo Asencio allowed four singles and a sacrifice bunt in the ninth inning, allowing Japan two runs to tie the game. Hayato Sakamoto then struck a game-winning drive well over the center fielder on a pitch from Jhan Marinez.
The rocky relief pitching followed six scoreless innings from two of the Japanese baseball league’s best throwers, the Dominican Republic’s Cristopher Mercedes and Japan’s Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The pair allowed just five hits between them to start the game.
Baseball is phenomenally popular in Japan, and fans have high hopes for a good performance by their team in a sport restored at the wishes of Japanese Games organisers after previously featuring in the Olympics from 1992 through 2008. Cuba have won three gold medals and the United States and South Korea one apiece.
Japan and the Dominican Republic now each face Mexico later this week. The teams’ records after those games decide seeding for a double-elimination tournament that begins on Sunday and also includes the United States, underdog Israel and defending champion South Korea.
Yamamoto, 22, the innings and strikeout leader for Orix Buffaloes, the team currently leading the Pacific League in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB), struck out nine Dominicans and walked one.
Mercedes, 27, who is 5-1 for NPB’s Yomiuri Giants this season, struck out a Giants’ team mate playing for Japan and rolled through league hitters he faced as recently as July 10, when he pitched before 18,000 fans.
The Japanese government instituted stricter COVID-19 spectator restrictions for the Olympics, meaning a Dominican delegate pounding on a small drum was among the few dozen people around to cheer along on Wednesday.
Suited-up Olympics organisers were on hand for the first pitch. Those included Japanese baseball legend Sadaharu Oh, 81, who appeared in the Games Opening ceremony on July 23, and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, but the organisers’ contingent scattered quickly as 32 degrees Celsius heat cut through partly cloudy skies.
Drizzle late in the game encouraged incessant buzz from cicadas, drowning out recorded crowded noise.
Players from NPB, Korea’s professional league and North America’s training system Minor League Baseball dominate the Games because the world’s premier organisation, Major League Baseball, does not allow its top players to participate. That has starved the Olympics of globally recognised superstars including Japan’s Shohei Ohtani and Dominican native Fernando Tatis Jr.
The Dominican Republic competed a player short. Starting third baseman Diego Goris was booted from the Games last Saturday for a positive cannabis test. Replacement Gabriel Arias has not joined up with the team yet.
(Reporting by Paresh Dave; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)
