When Degang Guo talks about cross talk, he often says, "Cross talk is all made up, but this paragraph is true." It is also quite appropriate to use this sentence to describe the final between Japanese team and American team in world baseball classic (WBC). The plots that appeared in hot-blooded comics and inspirational movies, such as the man saving the team, and the fate confrontation between the two men, all appeared in this game. Let people who have seen the game feel sincerely: comics may be made up, but the blood of the game is real.
Without gossiping, the game is directly brought back to the most exciting and final round. This is the first half of the ninth inning of the final between Japan and the United States. The 3-2 leading Japanese team has caught two outs, and it is only the last one to win the championship.
At this time, the player standing on the mound is the flag figure of Japanese baseball now, and currently plays for Shohei Ohtani of MLB los angeles angels team. As a pitcher, Otani played an outstanding role in this WBC competition. In the opening match of the Japanese team’s group match against China, and in the first round of the knockout match against Italy, he started to board the board and threw out wonderful contents, and eventually he became the winning pitcher on the spot. This time, as the "closed pitcher" in the last battle, it is enough to show the coach’s trust in him.
This world-class pitching skill is only half of Shohei Ohtani’s total ability. When he puts on his helmet, picks up his bat and stands in the batting zone, a hitter who is also the top player in the world will appear again. Counting the final against the United States, Shohei Ohtani hit all seven games in this WBC, hitting 10 hits with 23 hits, including 4 double hits and 1 home run. One person contributed 8 RBIs for the Japanese team.
Give a background introduction to friends who are not familiar with baseball. In short, baseball is a game of throwing and playing. The pitcher throws the ball on the mound and the batter swings the bat, which is the core of baseball. With the development of baseball, pitching and hitting, the two basic skills of baseball players, are now completely different. In particular, the emergence of the "designated hitter" system allows pitchers to hit the ball completely without swinging, and it is the pitchers’ turn to hit the bat, and special players will take their place. The purpose of this is to better protect pitchers, so that they can concentrate on pitching and devote all their energy to dealing with one batter after another.
The reverse is also true. In order to deal with pitchers who are getting faster and faster, and whose pitching lines are getting sharper and sharper, batters also need to make hard efforts to come back and keep swinging and hitting. In Major League Baseball, you are already a top hitter if you can hit a batting average of 30%. Under such difficulty, few hitters can be distracted to practice pitching, let alone improve their pitching ability to the level of playing in major leagues.
And Shohei Ohtani, is such a player. As mentioned earlier, in the seven games of WBC, Otani’s pitching and hitting are top-level, and for MLB fans, they have gradually become accustomed to Otani’s performance. Last season, Otani started 28 pitches on behalf of Angels, and scored 15 wins and 8 losses. His self-blame score was a career low of 2.33, and his strikeouts were a career high of 219. In the batting session, Otani played in 157 games, with 586 hits and 160 hits, including 34 home runs, with a batting average of 27.3%.
What kind of concept is this? If you use basketball as an analogy, it’s like a player who has a shooting percentage of about 42% in sports and a shooting percentage of about 35% in three points, and can get 28 points per game at the offensive end, and can also get 8 rebounds and 2 blocks per game at the defensive end. He is not only the top five scorer in the league, but also the top ten defender in the league. A team with him can win 6 to 8 more games in a single season. If you picture such a basketball player in your mind, his level in NBA is basically the same as that of Shohei Ohtani in MLB. The award of MLB american league MVP in 2021 is the recognition of Shohei Ohtani’s ability.
Before Shohei Ohtani appeared, baseball fans were used to dividing pitchers and hitters into two distinct groups. Because in modern professional baseball, no one can have two identities at the same time and play at a very high level. Otani did it. From Koshien to Japanese professional baseball to MLB, "throwing double knives" is the most shining label on him. At the same time, Otani is also using his own performance to make this unique identity more outstanding.
According to the structure of hot-blooded comics, such a genius must have a strong enemy standing opposite him. On the stage of WBC final, Shohei Ohtani ushered in such an opponent. Looking back to the final round of the Japanese-American final, the American player standing in the batting area at this time is Mike trout, a 10-time MLB All-Star, a three-time American League MVP winner and currently playing for los angeles angels.
Yes, trout, like Shohei Ohtani, is also from los angeles angels. Since Otani entered MLB in 2018, trout has been a teammate with him. Therefore, the two had never had a chance to face each other in a formal competition before.
How strong is trout? You can get a glimpse of one or two from the honors he has won above. The outfielder, who entered the major league in 2011, quickly became the top star of MLB with his super hitting ability, base running speed and defensive ability, and even entered the discussion category of "the best in history". In addition, in 2019, Angel gave the absolute core of this team a 12-year renewal contract with a total value of nearly 430 million US dollars, which became the largest contract in the history of professional sports in North America. Only from this contract, we can also see the status and value of trout today.
However, as a team sport, baseball is still difficult to support a team with only one or two top stars. Trout has been in the league for more than ten years. Except for one playoff in 2014, he lingered outside the playoff, not to mention winning the final world series. This situation has not fundamentally improved since Shohei Ohtani joined in 2018. Because of the pitcher’s overall strength and the constant injuries and other factors, Angel’s performance has not improved by leaps and bounds, and trout and Otani, the "double MVP" combination, have not been given the opportunity to show themselves on a bigger stage.
However, in the final stage of WBC, two players who were quite "depressed" in the Angels team had the opportunity to challenge the baseball world champion. WBC, which is held only once every four years, is the "World Cup" in baseball. Shohei Ohtani said in an interview: "I have seen the Japanese team win this game before. At that time, I hoped that I could be a part of this team. Now I am really happy to have such an experience."
In this way, like fate, two top baseball players and two teammates who fought side by side in the professional arena stood at both ends of the field for the honor of world champions. Otani knew trout’s hitting ability, so in this round of confrontation, he took out his best fastball and slider as weapons. After several fastballs with a speed of 100 mph or more were thrown in succession, the situation of the game also came to "two strikes and three bad balls".
Such a scene is really like the comic book Major League Baseball coming into reality. In that cartoon, the protagonist, Goro Mauno, played on behalf of the Japanese team and met the American team led by Gibson. In the cartoon, the two men also met head-on in the first half of the ninth inning, and Goro Mauno’s fastball with a speed of 100 miles per hour was thrown out of the wall by Gibson, which reversed the game.
But this time, it was Shohei Ohtani who had the leading role. His last ball threw a slider with a perfect trajectory. Although the speed was only 87 miles per hour, the ball he threw made a sharp turn at the last minute, which lured trout to swing and failed. "His slider was too sharp," Arena, the third baseman of the American team and the star of the Cardinals, said after the game. "It was a great ball. If Mike trout can’t hit it, I don’t think anyone can."
It was such a perfect slider that Shohei Ohtani struck out his teammates and helped the Japanese team get the last out of the game. When the Japanese players swarmed and embraced the excited Otani, the players from trout and the United States became the background for their opponents to celebrate their victory. The happy ending of the hot-blooded cartoon was projected on Otani and his Japanese teammates.
This is the beauty and cruelty of professional sports. Some people reap the victory, while others naturally taste the bitterness. But after witnessing such a peak showdown, the charm of baseball seems to go beyond the boundaries of victory and defeat. Lars Nuteba, the outfielder of the Japanese team and currently playing for the Cardinals, said sincerely after the game, "I think baseball won again by ending the game in this way. The overall level of this WBC has risen to a higher level. I hope that such a big exposure can increase more baseball fans around the world. "
This is the third time that Japan has won the WBC championship, and it is also the first time that it has won the match with the United States. After losing the game, trout said positively that he liked the competition atmosphere of WBC very much, and he also had a positive attitude towards participating in the next competition. In addition, he also shouted to the champion teammate Shohei Ohtani: "He won the first round of the confrontation." It seems that this confrontation like a hot-blooded cartoon has not yet come to an end.
