The World Baseball Classic (WBC) Korean national team was eliminated in the first round of three consecutive tournaments. The chain of failure following the semifinals in the first tournament in 2006 and the runner-up in the second tournament in 2009 continues for three consecutive tournaments. To interpret it as ‘coincidence’ or ‘misfortune’, the pattern of tears is becoming fixed. It’s time to look into the reason why results close to ‘inevitability’ come out.

Along with another failure in the WBC, criticism continues on the level of Korean professional baseball. In particular, the 4-13 defeat in the match against Japan, which was held on the 10th as the second game of the first round, was driven to the risk of losing a cold game, and it became a symbolic scene to explain this tournament. If so, did the difference in the level of baseball between Korea and Japan widen again as much as the difference in score? In fact, the most painful thing was that the national team players were not able to raise their pace enough to confirm the difference in level.

The senses of the batters were fine. In the 2013 and 2017 tournaments, respectively, they met the Netherlands and Israel in their first matches, only scoring no goals and scoring one goal, and fell into trouble one after another. In this tournament, he scored 7 points against Australia and 4 points against Japan.

However, the pace of the pitchers was not. Among the 15 pitchers in the entry, only a handful of players showed the usual speed, control, and changing ball angles. Only Park Se-woong (Lotte), Kim Kwang-hyeon (SSG), Won Tae-in (Samsung), and Lee Yong-chan (NC) pitched similarly to what domestic fans knew.

Bong Joong-geun (then LG), who was the main pitcher of the WBC national team in 2009, started 3 times against Japan alone and gave up 1 run in 17.2 innings in 4 games.

In this tournament, one or two pitchers were not sluggish. It was a general ‘phenomenon’. At the same time, what stood out was the change of ‘February Baseball’ in the KBO League. February is the time to raise your sense of practice. It seems that the universal ‘concept of time’ of the KBO League has changed without knowing it.

Samsung was the only one among the 10 teams to set up a spring camp in Okinawa, Japan in February. Starting with the match against the Nippon Ham on February 9th, the actual game was more than a week earlier than other teams that are training in Arizona or other places. However, the results of the early practice matches were bad, and in the match against Japanese teams, they were driven to 1 win and 4 losses. In particular, it was not until March 4 against Yomiuri that the Japanese team won their first match, showing a marked difference in content by scoring 5 points and conceding 41 points in 5 matches.

Teams in the KBO League were largely pushed back in the practice match against Japan in the early 2000s, but after the mid-2000s, the gap was narrowed and the opponents in February were overturned. For example, in the 2012 Okinawa League, Korean teams showed an advantage with 15 wins, 3 draws and 14 losses.

Even then, KBO league teams started team training at camp around mid-January. Controversy always followed during the inactive period, but as a result, most of the players were ready quickly, and the coaches were able to check directly. This same league culture naturally worked for the WBC match in March.

In the season preparation culture of the KBO League, the topic of ‘fast’ is being erased. The topics of ‘firmly’ and ‘thoroughly’ are filling the place.Since the 144 game system started with KT joining the first team in 2015, the vigilance against ‘over pace’ has become more severe. The phenomenon of watching the season for a long time and preparing slowly and stably is growing.

In this tournament, young pitchers with little experience seemed more blunt. Even if there was a consciousness that he had to make a body in a hurry, it seems that it would be difficult to change the habit that he has already been accustomed to for several seasons at once. Moreover, with the national team convocation training only starting in mid-February, there was little room for any coach to intervene.

It is not a matter of interpreting all the results based only on the level difference between the 2006 and 2009 WBC national team players who fought equally against strong teams such as Japan and the United States and this year’s national team players.메이저놀이터 It is also time to check the February baseball of the KBO League, which made the WBC of March.