The national baseball teams participating in the 5th World Baseball Classic (WBC) gathered together and started full-scale joint training. The key is to improve the sense of the game without injury during the remaining 20 days until the opening.
The national team gathered on the 15th (Korean time) at the Westward Look Widdom Grand Resort in Tucson, Arizona, USA. All 28 players except Ha-seong Kim and Tommy Edman of the ‘Major League Keystone Combi’ gathered. The two will join the national team one after another early next month.
Those who were digesting the spring camp in their respective teams arrived at the accommodation one after another using airplanes and vehicles. Players from Doosan Bears, Samsung Lions and Lotte Giants have come the farthest. They trained in Australia, Japan, and Guam, respectively, before arriving in the United States across the Pacific Ocean. SSG Landers players, who camped in East Florida on the other side of the North American continent, also covered formidable distances. The other five teams training in the same Arizona joined relatively easily.
In the future, the national team will have to deal with a formidable schedule. Starting with the NC Dinos on the 17th, the second day of joint training, practice matches with a total of four teams are scheduled until the 28th. After returning to Korea temporarily, he will catch his breath and go to Japan on the 4th of next month to play evaluation matches with Orix Buffaloes and Hanshin Tigers of Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). After that, the finals await. 온라인카지노
Therefore, the focus of joint training was naturally taken on ‘condition management’. National team coach Lee Kang-cheol said, “As they are national players, haven’t they all been technically verified?” He hinted at the possibility of adjusting the training schedule in consideration of fatigue from long-distance travel.
An injury advisory has also been issued. This is because the local weather, which should have been warm originally, is acting capricious. Recently, the temperature has plummeted and even hail fell, and a chilly wind blew quite a bit on this day as well. Coach Lee said, “I came with the hope that I would do well without injury.”
The first opponent the national team will face in the finals is Australia. It is more important than the symbolism of the first game. As much as Japan in the same group is confident that they have ‘the strongest team ever’, to increase their chances of advancing to the quarterfinals, they must not allow a blow to the other three teams. Among them, it is essential not to be caught by Australia, a relatively strong team.
The Korean national team has the upper hand in terms of objective power, but we must be wary of surprises. Lee Jung-hoo, who was selected as one of the top three outfielders in the tournament by MLB.com, the official major league website, emphasized, “The first game is more important (than the game against Japan),” and “I will only think about the game against Australia.”