Elimination rematch against Cuba looms Wednesday night

SAN DIEGO -- Their second baseman made two sloppy first-inning defensive plays. Their catcher was ejected from the game during the seventh inning for refuting a called third strike. And their manager wasn't happy with the entire display, saying afterward that he would have a "serious" team meeting to discuss it all.

The long and the short of it now is that because of their 4-1 loss to Korea on Tuesday night at PETCO Park, the Japanese must defeat Cuba for the second time in four days on Wednesday night at 11 ET to survive in the World Baseball Classic.

The winner heads to Los Angeles. The loser goes home.

"I don't want to talk about what we should have done and so forth. That doesn't help," Japanese manager Tatsunori Hara said when asked about his team's play against its rival. "The team itself will have to have a serious meeting and then we'll have another chance to play. Other than that, I'm not thinking anything. The most important thing is tomorrow's game. We must win.

"And what we did wrong, I don't want to talk about it right now."

Korea moves on, joining Team USA and Venezuela in the semifinals, which begin on Saturday night at Dodger Stadium. The finals are on Monday evening.

The defending champion Japanese have reached this juncture because of some wildness by young starter Yu Darvish and some poor play from usually steady veteran second baseman Akinori Iwamura, who also had two errors for Tampa Bay that helped the Rays lose Game 4 of last October's World Series eventually won by the Phillies.

Korea, which is 5-1 in the tournament and 11-2 in the first two runnings of the Classic, has defeated Japan twice in their three meetings this year. The teams have met six times in the Classic and the Koreans are 4-2, although three years ago, Japan eliminated Korea in a semifinal game on its way to winning the inaugural Classic title.

Japan defeated Cuba on Sunday, 6-0, in the opening game of Round 1 behind the five-hit pitching of Daisuke Matsuzaka, who won't be available to pitch on Wednesday night. And it was the Cubans who lost to the Japanese in '06 to decide the championship.

Catcher Kenji Johjima was tossed from the game by plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt after he struck out looking for the second out of the seventh inning.

Hara called the incident regrettable, and although no one would be specific about what the Mariners catcher did, Major League Baseball released a statement, which indicated that Johjima made a questionable gesture rather than saying something.

MLB cited the relevant section from the MLB Umpire Manual -- Part I, Section IV, page three, "Standards for Removal From the Game."

"Actions by players specifically intended to ridicule an umpire are grounds for ejection. Examples include drawing a line in the dirt to demonstrate location of a pitch or leaving equipment at the plate after striking out with less than two outs."

Hara was obviously perturbed about losing one of the four Major Leaguers from his lineup at a critical juncture of the game when the Japanese trailed, 3-1.

"Well, he knows what he did [wrong] and he regrets it," Hara said about Johjima. "In turn, he caused some trouble. And also to the umpire he did something regrettable. There was no malicious intent or anything like that, but ultimately it turned out that way. After the game was over he came to me, and I as the manager told the umpire I was sorry about it. And I did say that to him."

On the field, an uncharacteristically off-kilter first inning for the Japanese led to the first three Korean runs and essentially put the game out of reach.

Darvish was behind in the count early and the usually solid Japanese defense struggled for the 22-year-old right-hander. It was two plays by Iwamura that led to the trio of runs.

Yong-Kyu Lee opened with a single to left and when Keun-Woo Jeong grounded up the middle, Iwamura double-clutched and couldn't find the handle on the ball. Jeong was safe at first on what was scored as a single, Lee moving to second.

On the ensuing play, Hyun-Soo Kim hit a grounder to the right side, scoring Lee, but when Iwamura tried to force Jeong at second, his throw was low and evaded shortstop Yasuyuki Kataoka, who was charged with the error.

In any event, it was a bad decision by Iwamura, who had ranged far to the right side to field the grounder and had an easy flip for the out at first base.

Darvish walked Tae Kyun Kim to load the bases and two more runs scored on Jin Young Lee's single to left.

"Let's just say that the out was what was wanted," Hara said when asked about Iwamura's plays.