Kodai Senga (30, New York Mets), who is considered one of the aces of the Japanese national team, has lost the right to participate in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), which will be held in March. Senga has faithfully responded to the call for the national team, but there were circumstances that made it impossible this time.메이저사이트
Senga, who was one of the best pitchers in Japanese professional baseball, prepares for his first season in the major leagues by signing with the New York Mets ahead of this season. In order to achieve his own dream, he is looking at the season with extraordinary determination to prove the investment amount of 75 million dollars (approximately 96.7 billion won) over 5 years. But he has to adapt to the team, the league, and the culture to achieve that goal.
The WBC is held in March, and Japan, which has a high possibility of reaching the semifinals, has no choice but to vacate the team for over 20 days. It was not easy for Senga, whose first priority was to adapt to the team, to give up the precious 20 days of spring training. In the end, unfortunately, he gave up participating in this tournament. It is very regrettable that the Japanese national team also lost one sure starting pitcher.
However, it does not build a wall with the WBC. He still cares and cheers on his teammates. Senga has good memories of the WBC, such as participating in the 2017 tournament and throwing 11 innings in 4 games and making an outstanding performance with an ERA of 0.82. Although he will not be able to participate in this tournament, he intends to keep a close eye on the Japanese national team and the tournament in general.
Senga, who had a memory of failing to win the tournament he aimed for in 2017, showed strong confidence in the Japanese team this time. He uttered the word ‘dream team’ without hesitation. Senga expressed strong trust, saying, “Japan has many great players, including players who are active in the big leagues, such as Yu Darvish (San Diego) and Shohei Otani (LA Angels). As a fan, I think it is a dream team.”
He was also nervous about his biggest rival in Asia, Korea, who had to face another fateful match in the first round of the preliminaries. Senga highly praised the match, saying, “Korea also has many good players, including players who are active in the major leagues.” did.
In terms of objective power, Japan is always ahead, and there is a gap, with Japan winning more in recent head-to-head matches. However, in the WBC, Korea has a history of always harassing Japan, so Japan also points to Korea as the biggest challenge in the first round. Due to the nature of the short-term match, the match may be split in an unexpected place, so there is a high possibility that Japan will pour its best efforts into the match against Korea and Japan. Baseball fans around the world are paying attention to whether it will be a hot game as expected by Senga.