Darvish, Murata Shine in WBC Opener

In 2006, the World Baseball Classic was the staging area for Daisuke Matsuzaka to showcase his talents. Three years later, and many here in the West are looking at Yu Darvish the same way. In four innings, Darvish struck out three Chinese batters, and allowed no hits as Japan got off to an expected good start with a 4-0 win at Tokyo Dome.

Mostly using his straight, and keeping his slider action to a minimum, Darvish was in his element, blowing away the heavy underdog Chinese. After his pitch limit was reached, Darvish gave way to Hideaki Wakui of the Saitama Seibu Lions. He went 2 shutout innings. After that, Yamaguchi, Ma-kun Tanaka, Hawks closer Takehiro Mahara, and Tigers closer Kyuji Fujikawa completed the shutout.

BayStar slugger Shuichi Murata was the key offensive output for the Japanese team. He clubbed a 2-run shot into the right field stands. The Japanese cause was helped when Chinese pitcher Li was called for a balk while trying to make a pickoff move, which brought a runner in from third.

Team Japan now awaits the winner of Friday's game between Olympic champion and archrival Korea and another heavy underdog, Chinese Taipei.