LOS ANGELES — The mind-set of Japanese baseball players is to place the team ahead of the individual. That is especially true in the World Baseball Classic, where team and country are synonymous. The Japanese are proud players who believe that as long as they work hard, they can beat anyone.
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The team-first players from Japan worked hard to beat the United States, 9-4, in the semifinals Sunday night at Dodger Stadium and are one win away from winning the tournament for the second straight time. Japan will play South Korea on Monday night for the championship.
When Tatsunori Hara, the Japanese manager, discussed the tournament last January, he said he had “high expectations” and wanted players “who won’t sully the title of samurai.” So far, the Japanese players have embellished their title of samurai with their typically precise brand of baseball.
“They just play baseball,” Jimmy Rollins said. “They don’t worry about the big things. They just do things right.”
The Japanese players gathered in mid-February to begin their march toward another world title, or about two weeks before the United States had its first practice. Every time the Japanese played, they played as a team. Meanwhile, the Americans, who were hampered by player injuries and player apathy, sometimes seemed like less of a team and more of a collection of players.
Still, the loss deflated those players. Mark DeRosa said the Americans would “go home disappointed” because they “expected to win this thing.” Derek Jeter looked the way he looks whenever the Yankees have disappeared in October. Jeter was asked if baseball was still America’s game, which he believed it is.
“I wouldn’t go around and call it somebody else’s game just because we lost the game tonight,” Jeter said. “Like I said before, anything is possible in one game.”
In one game, one crisply played game, the Japanese succeeded and created a result that Hara said “will remain in history.” Hara reminded reporters that the United States was the birthplace of baseball, so any win against the country that created the sport had special significance for the Japanese.
Daisuke Matsuzaka knew the American hitters and they knew him because his full-time job is as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. Japan believed that mutual knowledge would help Matsuzaka, who won the finale in the 2006 Classic. Despite an uneven performance in which Matsuzaka allowed two runs in four and two-thirds innings, Japan prevailed before 43,630 fans.
The Japanese rolled in part because their relievers were impressive in following Matsuzaka. DeRosa had a two-run double off Takahiro Mahara to slice the deficit to two runs in the eighth. DeRosa scampered to third when the ball was misplayed in left field. But Mahara rebounded to strike out pinch-hitter Evan Longoria and retired second baseman Brian Roberts on a tapper back to the mound. Japan, still working hard, rebounded with three runs in the ninth.
Shane Victorino, a switch-hitter, was poised to pinch-hit in the eighth, but Manager Davey Johnson recalled him and used the right-handed-hitting Longoria against the right-handed Mahara. Johnson said he wanted Longoria in that spot because he is “an R.B.I. man.” A two-run homer would have tied the game. The strategy failed.
“It’s a decision he makes as a manager,” Victorino said. “There’s nothing that can be done. He probably had a gut feeling on something he wanted to do.”
That was not Johnson’s only debatable decision. Johnson selected Roy Oswalt to start ahead of Jake Peavy, and he stayed with Oswalt when he got into trouble in the fourth. With the United States ahead, 2-1, Oswalt fizzled quickly.
After Japan had two singles to begin the fourth, Kosuke Fukudome hit a ball between the first- and second-base hole. Roberts, who had opened the game with a homer, glided to his left, but did not field the ball cleanly. It bounced off his glove for an error, skipped into right field and enabled Japan to tie the score, 2-2.
Kenji Johjima’s sacrifice fly gave the Japanese a 3-2 lead, but Johnson did not have relievers warming up. Oswalt was laboring, and this was an elimination game. But Johnson did not manage as if it were the decisive game in a seven-game series, with the Americans a couple of hits away from being in a perilous position.
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