Tokyo: For all the hype surrounding South Korea's right-handed sluggers, it was the left-handed Moon Bo-gyeong who landed the first big punch on Czechia in his team's 10-3 victory at the World Baseball Classic (WBC) on Thursday. And then Shay Whitcomb and Jamai Jones, two of those right-handed mashers, joined the fun later by combining for three home runs, as South Korea powered past Czechia in the teams' first Pool C game at Tokyo Dome.
According to Yonhap News Agency, batting fifth, Moon smoked a first-inning grand slam off starter Daniel Padysak for a quick 4-0 lead. The Czech right-hander Padysak got the hook right away. Padysak was careful around a couple of dangerous right-handed mashers ahead of Moon, walking leadoff man Kim Do-yeong and then cleanup Ahn Hyun-min. Both Kim and Ahn had homered in South Korea's last exhibition game on Tuesday.
With the count at 2-1 against Moon, Padysak hung a slider over the heart of the plate and the South Korean batter made no mistake, driving it 428 feet into the seats to right-center field. With South Korea up 5-0 in the third inning, Whitcomb, one of three U.S.-born players of Korean descent on the team, launched a solo home run off reliever Jeff Barto. At a 3-1 count, Whitcomb turned on a changeup that caught the middle of the zone, and the ball traveled 379 feet into the seats in left-center field.
Czechia made things a little more interesting with Terrin Vavra's three-run shot in the top fifth, but Whitcomb gave his side more breathing room with a two-run homer in the bottom half of that inning. Facing Michal Kovala, Whitcomb pulled a 0-1 slider into left field to put South Korea up by 8-3.
Not to be outdone, Moon collected his fifth RBI of the game with a seventh-inning single. Jones was then late to the party with his eighth-inning solo home run off Lukas Hlouch's 1-1 curveball. The shot to left-center field was measured at 392 feet.
South Korea has adopted an airplane celebration for each home run, signifying the team's collective desire to board a chartered flight to Miami, the site of the quarterfinals. With the top two teams in Pool C advancing to the quarters, South Korean bats looked ready for takeoff for the U.S. city.