Baseball: Japan manager pulls out all the stops to reach WBC semis

Samurai Japan manager Hideki Kuriyama was as good as his word in Thursday’s World Baseball Classic quarterfinal victory, when he predicted it would be “all hands on deck” and unleashed the full power of his roster to crush Italy and reach the semis.

Even though the Italians had never reached the semifinals, Kuriyama took no chances against a team built around a core of American major and minor leaguers.

Two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani started on the mound and cruised through three innings. When Ohtani began running out of steam, Kuriyama used his pitching depth to keep Italy at bay, running ou...