The Korean baseball team, led by coach Lee Kang-cheol, will face Yamakawa Hotaka (Seibu Lions), the home run king of the Japanese professional baseball Pacific League, in the 2023 World Baseball Classic (WBC).

Japanese media Sports Nippon said on the 14th, “It has been confirmed that Yamakawa will be included in the final list of the 2023 WBC of the Japanese baseball team.”

According to the media, Yamakawa recently received a request from Japanese baseball team coach Hideki Kuriyama to join, and replied, “I will participate in the tournament.”

On the 6th, Japan first revealed the 12 players who will participate in the WBC, and plans to announce the remaining 18 players at the end of this month. Among them, Yamakawa’s selection for the Japanese baseball team was decided.

Yamakawa has never played in major international competitions such as the WBC, Olympics, and Premier 12, but played an active role as the 4th batter of the Japanese baseball team at the 2017 Asian Professional Baseball Championship (APBC).

He left a strong impression by hitting 바카라 a two-run home run against Koo Chang-mo (NC Dinos) in the APBC opening match against Korea at the time. In addition, in the final match against Korea, he contributed to Japan’s victory with 1 hit in 4 at-bats, 1 walk and 2 RBIs.

Yamakawa, who joined Seibu in 2014, is a representative of Japanese professional baseball. In 2018 and 2019, he drew 47 and 43 arches, respectively, and achieved the second straight home run title, but in 2020 and 2021, he hit 24 homers each due to injuries. However, last year, he hit 41 homers in 129 games to become the third home run champion in his personal career, and with 90 RBIs, he became the first RBI leader in his career.

Yamakawa hit 666 hits in 769 professional games, including 218 home runs. He has an excellent career slugging percentage of 0.547 and has 570 career RBIs.

Japan was placed in Group B with Korea, Australia, China, and the Czech Republic in the first round of the WBC. Sookmyung’s Korea-Japan match is scheduled to take place on March 10th at the Tokyo Dome.