Tuesday night, Japan won the 2023 World Baseball Classic championship game and cliched its third ever WBC title. The game of course -- of course -- came down to Shohei Ohtani vs. Mike Trout, the sport's two greatest talents. Ohtani struck out his Los Angeles Angels teammate with a nasty 3-2 slider to seal Japan's WBC championship.
"Obviously didn't come out the way I wanted it to," Trout told MLB.com after the game. "I think as a baseball (fan), everybody wanted to see it. He won round one."
Thanks in part to his championship game save, Ohtani was named the WBC MVP. He was also named to the All-WBC Team at two positions: DH and starting pitcher. That tends to happen when you produce the tournament's hardest hit ball (118.7 mph) and fastest thrown pitch (102.0 mph). Here is the 2023 All-WBC Team:
| Position | Player | WBC Stats |
|---|---|---|
Catcher | Salvador Perez, Venezuela | .420/.467/.929 and 1 HR in 4 G |
First base | Yu Chang, Chinese Taipei | .438/.500/.938 and 2 HR in 4 G |
Second base | Javier Báez, Puerto Rico | .368/.368/.684 and 1 HR in 5 G |
Shortstop | Trea Turner, USA | .391/.440/.1.043 and 5 HR in 6 G |
Third base | Yoan Moncada, Cuba | .435/.519/.739 and 1 HR in 6 G |
Outfield | Randy Arozarena, Mexico | .450/.607/.900 and 1 HR in 6 G |
Outfield | Mike Trout, USA | .296/.406/.556 and 1 HR in 7 G |
Outfield | Masataka Yoshida, Japan | .409/.531/.727 and 2 HR in 7 G |
Designated hitter | Shohei Ohtani, Japan | .435/.606/.739 and 1 HR in 7 G |
Pitcher | Shohei Ohtani, Japan | 1.86 ERA and 11 K in 9 2/3 IP (3 G) |
Pitcher | Patrick Sandoval, Mexico | 1.23 ERA and 8 K in 7 1/3 IP (2 G) |
Pitcher | Miguel Romero, Cuba | 2.08 ERA and 13 K in 8 2/3 IP (5 G) |
Báez was also named to the All-WBC Team in 2017. He joins Yadier Molina (2013 and 2017) and Daisuke Matsuzaka (2006 and 2009) as the only players to be named to the All-WBC Team in multiple years. Ohtani is, of course, the only player to be named to the All-WBC Team at two different positions.
"All you got to do is be born being able to throw at 100 mph and hit the ball 500 feet," Lars Nootbaar, Ohtani's teammate with Japan, told MLB.com about Ohtani's two-way excellence. "There's really not that much going into it. But, no, he's exceeded all of my expectations. He's able to do stuff that I can't even dream of doing."
