South Korea aims to avenge loss to Japan in Asian Games baseball final

South Korea's national baseball team, led by Manager Ryu Ji-hyun, faces Japan in the final of the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Sunday, looking to avenge a 0-5 loss to the same opponent on Friday.

The game is set for 6:30 p.m. at Toyohashi City Baseball Stadium in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. A South Korean victory would extend the country's gold-medal streak — dating back to the 2010 Guangzhou Games — to five consecutive titles.

Japan, which shut out Korea 5-0 in the super round, is chasing its first Asian Games baseball title since the 1994 Hiroshima Games, 32 years ago.

Korea will start Kwak Bin, who laid the groundwork for victory in the tournament opener against Taiwan on Monday, throwing six innings of no-hit, scoreless ball while striking out 10 and issuing just two walks.

Kwak overpowered Taiwan's batters from the first inning with a fastball that touched 157 kilometers per hour, though he ran into trouble in the third when a walk and a passed ball put a runner on second with nobody out.

He escaped the jam by striking out the next two batters in succession and went on to pitch perfectly through the sixth.

Kwak has been in the form of his career in the KBO League this season, going 11-7 with a 2.26 ERA and 186 strikeouts over 26 games — leading the league in both ERA and strikeouts.

He won a gold medal at the 2022 Hangzhou Games but a gallbladder condition kept him from taking the mound in a single game; Sunday will mark his first Asian Games final appearance.

He takes on Japan's lineup after five days of rest since the Taiwan game.

Standing in his way is Japanese left-hander Higuchi Shin, who held Korea's lineup scoreless over seven innings on Friday.

Higuchi came up through Chiba Keizai University's affiliated high school and Aichi Institute of Technology before joining the corporate baseball team Oji last year. In his first season with the club, he posted the best ERA in corporate baseball (1.25) and threw a complete-game shutout to help Oji win the Urban League Baseball Tournament.

In this tournament, he allowed one run over six innings against China on Monday, then held Korea to four hits over seven innings on 92 pitches on Friday without surrendering a run.

Across those two outings, he struck out 14 batters and allowed just one run over 13 innings.

However, Higuchi will be taking the mound with only one day of rest, which raises the question of whether Korea can capitalize on early scoring opportunities in a way it could not in their previous meeting.