Ondrej Satoria, an electrician from the Czech Republic who improbably became a star in Japan thanks to three pitches, pitched his final game for his country at the World Baseball Classic on Tuesday night and is confident he left the European country¡¯s national team better than when he arrived.
Satoria became a baseball sensation when he struck out Shohei Ohtani on three pitches during the 2023 WBC. He had said he would retire after the Czech Republic¡¯s final game during this year¡¯s tournament and went out with 4? scoreless innings and three strikeouts against Samurai Japan at Tokyo Dome.
He received a standing ovation from a crowd of over 42,000 ¡ª and many of the Samurai Japan players ¡ª after the game. When Japan manager Hirokazu Ibata passed Satoria as he left a postgame news conference, he greeted him with ¡°nice pitching.¡±
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