Czechia gives Japan a ride, but reigning champs slam door to go undefeated

TOKYO -- Few people on this planet can hit the ball as hard or as far as Munetaka Murakami. The Samurai Japan slugger, who inked a two-year, $34 million deal with the White Sox earlier this offseason, proved that in Tuesday’s 9-0 victory over Czechia when he launched a massive grand slam to center field in a nine-run eighth to put an exclamation mark on Japan’s pool play. It was the fifth grand slam in this year’s World Baseball Classic -- already setting a record for the most in a single tournament.

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All but one of them have come in the Tokyo Dome, with Korea’s Bo Gyeong Moon, Chinese Taipei’s Stuart Fairchild and Japan’s Shohei Ohtani -- who was given the day off by manager Hirokazu Ibata to give him rest, plus to allow him to prepare as a starting pitcher for the upcoming season -- and Murakami each smashing one. Fernando Tatis Jr. of the Dominican Republic has the other.

It wasn’t Murakami’s first big hit for Japan. His walk-off double against Mexico in 2023 sent Japan to the final. His bat in the lineup is a crucial part of the offensive strategy of Ibata, whose roster can muscle the ball over the wall with the best of them.

"I was expecting him to hit one, a good one, and he did it," Ibata said. "After we go to the States and we have a couple days to adjust, I wish him more [success]."

Young pitcher Hiroto Takahashi -- who trains with Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the offseason and struck out Mike Trout and Paul Goldschmidt in the championship game in 2023 -- made his first start in the 2026 World Baseball Classic for the Japanese national team. Though he’s expecting to pitch in relief in the next round, this was his dream.

“Being a starting pitcher at WBC was one of my goals,” Takahashi said. "So how do I explain it? I am so grateful.”

While the scoreline looked lopsided, that was far from how the game actually played out. For nearly eight innings, the defending Classic champions couldn’t find a way to push a run across the board against the fan favorite Central European team whose roster almost entirely consists of amateur players with day jobs.

"We were in kind of a tight game, but the very last inning, our offense blew up, which is good," Ibata said.

Though the Czechs entered the day 0-3, manager Pavel Chadim, himself a neurologist, came to the pregame news conference wearing the bronze medal the team won in last fall’s European Baseball Championship. It was the first medal that the country had ever won at the tournament.

“I have this medal, because I want to show to the world that we are not baseball tourists,” Chadim said. “We are playing baseball like professionals. In the last European Championship, when we achieved our first historic medal, we were better than professionals from Great Britain, professionals from Israel, professionals from Germany, from Spain.”

It began with Ondřej Satoria, the electrical worker from Ostrava who struck out Shohei Ohtani in 2023. Making his final start for the national team before he retires to focus on his family -- he’ll continue to pitch for his Czech Extraliga team, Arrows Ostrava -- Satoria befuddled a Japanese lineup that featured three Major Leaguers and the reigning NPB Central League MVP, Teruaki Sato. Though his fastball hovers around 78 mph, he used his changeup, which he calls “the worker” to great effect. He gave up six hits, struck out three and allowed zero runs in 4 2/3 innings.

“It was my last dance, and I can say I really didn't expect it was going to be something like that,” Satoria said. “I’m really happy for this, that I kept Czech baseball in this game and for my family’s name."

Only 29 years old, Satoria could have continued playing, but he’s stepping away because, “I know that the Czech baseball is in a good hands. We’ve got a lot of more guys like Michal Kovala. You will see that in the next tournament or next [World Baseball Classic] Qualifier.”

Kovala, a college student at Chipola College, throw in the mid-90s, with a split-change that made some of Japan’s professional hitters look silly. If Satoria represents the past of the national team, it’s the young players like Kovala who will determine where it goes next.

“I believe that we have a bright future,” Chadim said.

Japan is now off to Miami, where it will face the Pool D runner-up (either the Dominican Republic or Venezuela) in the quarterfinals on Saturday at 9 p.m. ET (FOX). It'll look to win its fourth World Baseball Classic championship, but it will need to do it against some heavy competition.

For Czechia, it’ll need to requalify for the next World Baseball Classic. Before that, however, it’ll play in the Premier12 Qualifiers this winter. Chadim announced after Tuesday's game that the Premier12 Qualifiers and -- should Czechia reach the main tournament -- the Premier12 will be his last games.

“I had three goals before I became manager,” Chadim said. “One was to win a medal from European Championship -- a historical medal after 30 years for trying. Second was to play in the WBC. And the third was to qualify for the Premier 12, I'm close. I'm close.”