Japan also denied Korea in the 2006 Classic, beating them in a semi-final.
Japan took a 3-1 lead in the eighth after Uchikawa singled, took third on Inaba’s double and scored on Iwamura’s sacrifice fly.
But South Korea answered in the eighth when Lee Bum-ho opened with a double, advanced on a ground out and scored on pinch-hitter Lee Dae-ho’s fly out to deep centerfield, lifting the Koreans within 3-2.
That set the stage for a drama-filled ninth, with Japan only three outs from a title repeat.
Japan inserted Darvish to induce the last outs, but one-out walks to Kim Hyun-soo and Kim Tae-kyun brought up Choo Shin--soo, who had blasted a home run in the fifth inning.
Darvish struck out Choo in a tension-filled at-bat, bringing Korea’s last hope to the plate in Lee Bum Ho, who smacked a single to left field that drove in the tying run and sent the game into extra innings.
Japan’s Hisashi Iwakuma, last year’s Most Valuable Player in Japan’s Pacific League, baffled Korean hitters early, surrendering two runs on four hits over 7 2/3 innings with six strikeouts.
Choo, Korea’s only Major League Baseball player, blasted a homer over the centerfield wall to level the game 1-1 in the fifth. But Choo was the only Korean to reach second base in the first seven innings.
RSS