"92 pitches, one day of rest, and starting again?" Japan's baffling 'Koshien-style' drastic move... Ryu Ji-hyun's South Korea team won't fall for it twice [Nagoya Asian Games]

[Financial News] A pitching strategy one would expect to see only at Koshien, the stage for high school baseball, has appeared in the final of an international tournament. Japan, seeking the title on home soil, has made the audacious move of putting back on the mound in the final a starter who threw close to 100 pitches against South Korea's lineup just two days earlier.
The South Korea national baseball team, led by Ryu Ji-hyun, will face Japan, a team made up of corporate-league players, in the final of the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. The game for the coveted gold medal will take place at 6:30 p.m. on the 27th at Toyohashi Municipal Baseball Stadium in Aichi Prefecture.
The most striking feature is the radically contrasting starting-pitching matchup. As announced well in advance, South Korea will send its ace, Gwak Bin of the Doosan Bears, to the mound. In the first group-stage game against formidable Taiwan on the 21st, Gwak showcased "perfect pitching," combining fastballs reaching the 150-km/h range with a sharp changeup to allow no hits, strike out 10, and give up no runs over six innings. He has since had five full days of rest and is back at 100 percent.
Japan's choice, by contrast, defied common sense. Shin Higuchi, a left-hander who threw 92 pitches over seven scoreless innings in the first Super Round game against South Korea on the 25th, has been selected to start the final after just one day of rest.

Including his six-inning outing against China on the 21st and his seven-inning start against South Korea on the 25th, Higuchi is already making his third start of the tournament. His velocity sits in the mid-140-km/h range, but his strengths are deception, or a hidden delivery motion that disrupts hitters' timing, and precise control. Even in a short tournament, however, the prevailing assessment is that sending a starter who has thrown more than 90 pitches back out for the final after just one day of rest is both a desperate measure and a reckless gamble for Japan, which selected only nine pitchers for its roster. He is also highly likely to serve as an "opener" rather than pitch deep into the game.
South Korea now has the perfect chance for revenge, one it cannot afford to miss. Just two days ago, the team suffered the humiliation of a 0-5 shutout loss after failing to time Higuchi's unfamiliar delivery. But with that unfamiliarity no longer an advantage and the pitcher's stamina depleted, KBO League first-team hitters cannot be beaten by him twice.

The key will be whether central hitters such as KIM Do-yeong of the KIA Tigers and Moon Bo-kyung of the LG Twins, who have been mired in a deep slump throughout the tournament, can bounce back. If South Korea applies strong pressure to Japan's unconventional pitching from the early innings and brings it down, the achievement of winning a fifth consecutive Asian Games gold medal could come surprisingly easily.
Ryu Ji-hyun said, "Our original plan to win every game and take the title did not work out, but we will definitely produce a good result in the gold-medal game," reaffirming his determination to win. With professional pride at stake in this fateful South Korea-Japan showdown, baseball fans are watching Toyohashi to see whether Ryu Ji-hyun's team can decisively crush Japan's baffling gamble.
[email protected] Jeon Sang-il Reporter