WBC: Weaker start meant loss against South Korea
Czech national team played their third game at World Baseball Classic on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, South Korea proved too much of a challange for them.
Korea, along with Japan, are the favorites to advance from the group. However, their loss against Australia complicated situation for Korea, who needed to win against Czech Republic. And motivated opponent started strong after the batters pressured Lukáš Ercoli and added 5 runs.
In the second inning South Koreans added another run thanks to Ha-Seong Kim’s solo homerun.
Moments later Czech coaches made the decision to substitute Ercoli with Jeffrey Barto. New pitcher entered the game well, invoking double play on the first batter.
Czechs had a tough time with Se-Wong Park’s pitches and were unable to get any hits. Not until Martin Červenka‚s double in the fifth inning. Park, however, striked out two following batters before being substituted due to pitching limit. Korean pitcher striked out 8 batters, which seemed to rub off Been Gwak, who finished Czech inning with another strikeout.
However, Czechs started the seventh inning with a hit, this time courtesy of Eric Sogard. This was followed by a hit from Marek Chlup, who forced Gwak’s substitution. Even this wasn’t enough to stop Czech offense, as Matěj Menšík‚s double meant the first Czech runs of the night.
But Koreans quickly responded to Czechs runs with a second solo homerun from Ha-Seong Kim.
But Czechs were far from folding their arms as they loaded bases with two outs in the eighth inning. They scored their third and final run after a wild pitch.
Jan Novák then came in for Barto in the eighth inning and thanks to a double play he didn’t allow any runs, allowing his team to focus on making the game more dramatic.
Unfortunately offense was unable to add any more runs in the ninth inning and game thus finished 3-7.
„We played and we fought with one of the best team on the planet. I’d never think we would play 9 innings with Japan and they force Korea to play 5-6 pitchers in just 24 hours,“ said Pavel Chadim after the game. „I think that bad teams would fall apart after the first inning, but strong team will only focus more. I’m proud of the boys, the way they fought and the way they pushed themselves. We showed we are a good and a strong team.“
„We can be in the bottom half, or we can be in the top half. It’s all in our hands. If we beat Australia, we have to wait for the results of Korea – China game. If we don’t beat them, we have to hope Korea beats China and we will be back in 2026,“ added Czech manager. „After three games as visitors, we play as a home team tomorrow, which we are looking forward to. Australia is a top team which started with a win against Korea. We can have a little advantage as Australia needs to think we they could potentially play in the quarterfinals. I believe we will show quality the same way we already did at World Baseball Classic. We will let fate decide how it all ends.“
„I’m happy for Jeffrey [Barto]. It was one of the best pitching outings for a Czech pitcher that I’ve ever seen,“ said Pavel Chadim about the second pitcher. „Lukáš Ercoli kept us in the game against France in Regensburg. Perhaps it was fate today. Maybe the future show us he is ready to throw medal games at European Championship.“
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | ||
| Czech Republic | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 1 | |
| South Korea | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | x | 7 | 11 | 0 |
