TOKYO – The USA Baseball Collegiate National Team (0-5) fell in a tightly contested series finale with Japan (5-0) on Sunday, July 13, at Jingu Stadium in Tokyo. Despite crawling back from an early deficit to take the lead in the fifth, Japan managed to answer back with four runs to ultimately earn another 6-5 win and close out the week with a series sweep.
Japan used four hits to jump out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Ayuto Matsushita hit a double to left field on the first pitch of the game, and later came around to score on a Koichiro Oda RBI single to right field. After another single by Masahiro Tateishi and a groundout put runners in scoring position, a sacrifice fly by Kai Watabe doubled Japan’s lead.
The stars and stripes used timely hitting to knot the score at 2-2 across the next two innings. AJ Gracia (Virginia) led off the second inning with a base hit to extend his hit streak to five, advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt and groundout, then scored on a single by Drew Burress (Georgia Tech) to center field. In the third, Eric Becker (Virginia) played hero when he drove in Chris Rembert (Auburn), who reached on a one-out double, with a single to right field.
In the fifth, the U.S. took its first lead of the series thanks to a Zion Rose (Louisville) RBI single to left field. Becker tallied his second hit of the game when he laced a one-out single to right field, stole second, moved to third on a passed ball, then scored on Rose’s hit to give his squad a 3-2 advantage.
The lead was short-lived though, as Japan answered with four runs in the bottom frame to take a 6-3 lead. Nanato Sakakibara used a one-out triple to right field and an RBI groundout to bring the game-tying run across home plate, and then with the bases loaded following a base hit and hit-by-pitch, a wild pitch and 2-RBI double by Watabe scored the other three runs.
The U.S. brought in Ricky Ojeda (UC Irvine) after the four-run spark by Japan, and he managed to toss 1.2 hitless innings with five strikeouts to limit the damage.
In the sixth and seventh innings, Team USA used a pair of home runs to chip away at their deficit and make it a one-run game. In the sixth Vahn Lackey (Georgia Tech) hit an inside-the-park home run, and then Roch Cholowsky (UCLA) hit a leadoff homer to center field in the seventh.
Ryan McPherson (Mississippi State) took over on the mound for Ojeda in the seventh and hurled two scoreless innings with three punchouts to keep the U.S. in the game. The stars and stripes were unable to put a runner on base across the final two frames, though, and went down swinging to end the series.
Becker, Rose and Lackey tallied two hits each, while five other players had a hit to combine for the team’s series-high 11 in the game. Gracia and Rembert finished the series with a team-high five hits, while Becker and Rose tallied four.
Along with Ojeda, starting pitcher Ethan Norby (ECU) had five punchouts in the game. Ojeda was the only pitcher who made three appearances in the series, and he compiled a 0.00 ERA in 3.2 hitless innings with a team-best nine strikeouts.
The series record now stands at 24-21 in favor of the U.S. with a game record of 135-115-2.
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