JAPAN – Yutaro Osaki popped a two-run home run and the Seibu Lions downed Team Japan 7-2 in a World Baseball Classic tune-up game on Saturday at Tokyo Dome. The loss was the first by the reigning WBC champions since opening training camp.

Osaki put the defending Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) champions ahead 2-0 in the third with a blast off Team Japan starter Hisashi Iwakuma. Last year’s Sawamura Award winner, who yielded only three home runs in 2008, retired the first seven batters he faced before Ginjiro Sumitani’s single started the go-ahead rally.

The Japanese national team answered back in the fourth on Michihiro Ogasawara’s RBI single to left field that scored Atsunori Inaba. However, Seibu stretched the lead to 3-1 in the fifth and blew the game wide open with a four-run eighth off Satoshi Komatsu who managed to register only one out.

Iwakuma worked three innings allowing two runs on three hits while Inaba reached base four times with a 3-for-3 effort for Team Japan.

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Photo courtesy of Marco Vasini/International Baseball Federation (IBAF)

Tags: Japan, World Baseball Classic