Japan’s national baseball team manager Hirokazu Ibata has said he would step down following Japan’s 8-5 loss to Venezuela in Miami in the quarter-finals of the World Baseball Classic.
The newspaper Sports Hochi reported Ibata saying it was his “intention to resign.”
Japan are the defending champions and had won the event three times. It marked Japan’s first failure to reach the WBC semi-finals despite a team stacked with MLB talent including Shohei Ohtani.
Photo: AP
“The result is everything,” Sports Hochi reported Ibata as saying. “Although we lost this time, I hope Japan will grow stronger and win next time.”
Japan were 4-0 in play in Tokyo in Pool C — victories over Taiwan, South Korea, Australia and the Czech Republic — before being eliminated by Venezuela in the loss in Miami.
The MLB players on the Japan team included: Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Seiya Suzuki, Yusei Kikuchi, Masataka Yoshida, Munetaka Murakami, Kazuma Okamoto and Tomoyuki Sugano.
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