Baseball team coach Lee Kang-cheol, preparing for the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC), bet everything against Australia.
Coach Lee Kang-cheol and his national team coaches departed for Australia on the 5th via Incheon International Airport.
Prior to departure, coach Lee Kang-cheol said, “We must win against Australia. Australia is also expected to pour everything into the game against Korea. I will analyze each player well and prepare.” Coach Lee plans to watch the Australian Professional Baseball (ABL) game until the 9th and analyze his power.
The baseball team faces Australia-Japan-Czech Republic-China in Group B of the first round of the WBC. In terms of objective power, it is far ahead of the Czech Republic and China, and compared to Japan, where big leaguers such as Shohei Ohtani and Yu Darvish and top players in Japanese professional baseball have joined, it is somehow behind. In the end, it is most likely that Korea and Australia will fight for the second place in the group, where tickets to the quarterfinals are given.
Unlike Korean baseball, which won the semifinals of the first competition and the runner-up in the second competition, Australia has not even passed the first round in the previous WBC. Korea is not a team that cannot be surpassed, but it cannot be ignored as it is a team that is steadily stepping on the WBC stage. This time, former big leaguers such as pitcher Liam Hendricks (Chicago White Sox), who was selected as an MLB All-Star three times, will join the team.
Above all, Korean baseball has the trauma of the first game in the WBC. In the past two WBCs, I was eliminated in the first round, but the first match loss was the decisive blow. In the 2013 WBC, he lost to the Netherlands and was eliminated even after winning Australia-Taiwan.
If they fail to win their first game against Australia, they will have to face the burden of being eliminated and play their fateful match against Japan the next day. It is the worst scenario for the baseball team, which has only disappointed in international competitions such as the 2020 Tokyo Olympics No Medal after the gold medal at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games. 메이저놀이터
In order to avoid the worst situation, the baseball team is preparing everything with the attitude that Australia comes first before the Korea-Japan match. Considering the fact that there are many right-handed starting pitchers in Australia, 8 left-handed hitters were selected out of 15 fielders, and many pitchers who could use the forkball, which was unfamiliar to Australian hitters, were also called in.
If they catch Australia in their first match, they have a good chance of securing second place in the group. While completely free from the burden of dropping out, we can expect better content and results than expected in the Korea-Japan match. This is why the match against Australia comes first before the match against Korea and Japan.