Japan Wins Women’s World Cup

Japan’s reign as the top women’s baseball team in the world continued in convincing fashion at the 2016 Women’s World Cup held in South Korea.

Japan beat Canada 10-0 in the championship game in a game that was cut short after seven innings because Japan held a double-digit lead. Ayami Sato picked up the win with seven shutout innings. She held Canada to two hits while striking out five.

Japan was 8-0 for the tournament with five shutouts. It outscored its opponents 70-5.

Japan has now won the past five Women’s World Cups, which are held every two years. USA Baseball won the first two World Cups, held in 2004 and 2006, but Japan has won every World Cup since 2008. Venezuela defeated Taiwan in the bronze medal game.

While Japan was once again a convincing champion, the American women finished seventh, their worst ever for a World Cup.

The U.S. came into this year’s tournament having never finished worse than third. Team USA went 6-1 overall, but its one loss in the opening round was ill-timed as a 10-2 loss to Australia meant that the U.S. ended up in a three-way tie at 2-1 at the end of the first round in Group C.

In those cases, the tiebreaker is called Team Quality Balance, which is a formula that looks at runs scored and runs allowed divided by innings played. The U.S. ended up third in the tiebreaker because of its 10-2 loss and was sent to the consolation round.

Team USA went 4-0 in the consolation round, outscoring its opponents 64-1, including a 34-0 win over Pakistan that was called after three innings.

Tamara Holmes hit .722/.762/.1.222 for Team USA (13-for-18). Brittany Gomez was 10-for-18 (.556/.714/.778).

Sato was Japan’s ace as she went 3-0, 1.33 with 21 strikeouts and two walks in 21 innings to lead all pitchers in wins and strikeouts.