YOKOHAMA, Japan — Baseball returned to the Olympic program after an absence in the previous two Summer Games, largely based on Japan’s affinity for the sport.
The sport’s inclusion paid off for the host country.
Japan defeated the United States 2-0 on Saturday at Yokohama Baseball Stadium to win the country’s first Olympic gold in baseball.
Munataka Murakami’s solo home run that barely cleared the tall center-field fence with one out in the third stood as the lone run of the game until an eighth-inning insurance run.
U.S. starter Nick Martinez, who has pitched in Japan’s professional league since 2018, fired six gutsy innings with seven strikeouts, five hits and one walk allowed to keep the U.S. in the ball game.
All tournament, the U.S. offense had done enough to support its pitching staff – which entered Saturday’s contest with the best team ERA (2.18) in the field – came up empty on the competition’s final day.
The Americans certainly had their chances, though, in three consecutive innings. In the fifth, Japan starter Masato Morishita allowed a two-out single to Nick Allen and hit nine-hole hitter Jack Lopez with his next pitch. That brought up Eddy Alvarez, the U.S. opening ceremony flag-bearer who entered Saturday already having made history by winning a medal at the Summer and Winter Olympics.
Alvarez fell behind 0-2 but battled back to work the count full. On the sixth pitch, Alvarez grounded out to shortstop, ending the United States’ best chance against Morishita.
Reliever Koudai Senga entered for the sixth and walked Tyler Austin to lead off the inning, then plunked Eric Filia with two outs. He fell behind U.S. left fielder Jamie Westbrook 3-0 before the count went full and Westbrook popped out in foul ground to the catcher.
Alvarez had another chance to tie the game in the seventh with Allen – who doubled and had three of his team’s six hits – on third and two out, but he weakly grounded out to first.
Morishita, the reigning Nippon Professional Baseball Rookie of the Year switched speeds by a variance of 20 mph; his fastball maintained in the low-90s, while his 12-6 curveball kept U.S. hitters out in front. The second-long pause in the middle of his windup, just as he delivers to the ball to the plate, further messed with the batters’ timing.
U.S. reliever Scott McGough, who coughed up a ninth-inning lead to Japan on Monday, entered for the eighth and Japan tagged him for another run on Hayato Sakamoto’s single to center that Jack Lopez threw away, which allowed Takuya Kai – the walk-off hero from the team’s first meeting – to score.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tokyo Olympics: U.S. baseball falls to Japan in gold-medal game