South Korea falls 0-5 to Japan in Asian Games super round on Chuseok

South Korea's national baseball team suffered a shutout defeat against Japan in their Asian Games showdown on Friday, which fell on the Chuseok holiday.

The team, managed by Ryu Ji-hyun, lost 0-5 to Japan in the first super round game of the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games at Toyohashi Municipal Baseball Stadium in Aichi Prefecture. Japan fielded a squad composed entirely of industrial-league amateur players for the tournament.

It was South Korea's first loss of the competition, having gone undefeated in Group B with three straight wins. Korea's super round record now stands at one win and one loss, counting its earlier group-stage victory over Taiwan. Japan, which topped Group A with a perfect three-win record, improved to two wins in the super round and is well positioned to advance to the final.

The super round carries over results from the group stage. As Group A and Group B winners, Japan and South Korea each enter with one win — earned against the second-place teams in their respective groups — while second-place finishers Taiwan and China each carry one loss into the cross-group matchups.

If Japan beats Taiwan and South Korea defeats Group A runner-up China on Saturday, the two countries will meet again in the final on Sunday. Should South Korea, Japan and Taiwan all finish the super round at two wins and one loss, a final berth will be decided by Team Quality Balance, a tiebreaker based on head-to-head results among the tied teams.

South Korea's offense could not solve Japanese left-handed starter Higuchi Shin on Friday. Higuchi held Korea to four hits over seven scoreless innings, striking out four batters to earn his second win of the tournament. Born in 2002, Higuchi attended Aichi Institute of Technology before joining the industrial-league team Oji last year. Korea had also struggled against opposing starters earlier in the tournament — in its group-stage opener against Taiwan four days ago, the team managed just one run through five innings against starter Lin Yi-wei before pulling away for a 5-0 win.

Double plays proved decisive. All three of Korea's hits through six innings ended in double plays. In the first and fourth innings, No. 2 hitter and shortstop Kim Ju-won of NC Dinos reached base on singles, but No Si-hwan of the Hanwha Eagles hit into double plays in both at-bats. In the fifth, Park Jun-soon of the Doosan Bears singled to left, only for Yun Dong-hui of the Lotte Giants to ground into a double play that went from second baseman to shortstop to first base.

On the mound, starter So Hyeong-jun of KT Wiz ran into trouble in the third inning. After allowing a hit and a walk to put runners on first and second with one out, he gave up a line-drive double down the left-field line to Mukoyama Mutoki — who had already hit a right-center double in the first — to surrender the opening run. A groundout with runners on second and third then allowed another run to score. A third run came when Kim Ju-won's throw to first base on a Mizutani Shohei grounder went wide. The play was officially scored as an error on Kim, though first baseman No Si-hwan also drew scrutiny for failing to handle the one-hop throw.

Korea turned to Jo Byeong-hyeon of SSG Landers and Park Yeong-hyeon of KT in the sixth inning, but each pitcher allowed an RBI hit, giving Japan two more runs.

South Korea will face China in the second super round game at the same venue at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.