The South Korean national baseball team stands one win away from capturing its fifth Asian Games gold medal, positioning right-hander Gwak Been of the Doosan Bears as the starting pitcher for the title clash against Japan. Manager Ryu Ji-hyun’s squad arrives at the final showdown following a resilient bounce-back performance in the Super Round at the Toyohashi Municipal Baseball Stadium in Aichi Prefecture, Japan.
Korea enters the championship game on October 27 with a chance to secure a golden sweep that traces back through a dominant continental history. The program’s streak of consecutive titles spans the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, the 2014 Incheon Games, the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games, and the 2022 Hangzhou Games.
The journey through the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya tournament carried turbulence. While Korea went through Group B with a clean 3-0 record, the team stumbled in its opening Super Round matchup on October 25, falling 5-0 to a Japanese roster comprised of industrial (shakaijin) players. The shutout led local observers to label the result the “Toyohashi Disaster” as Korean bats managed only four hits while the pitching staff surrendered nine hits and five runs.
Response to the setback was swift. On October 26, Korea rebounded decisively by defeating China 9-2 at the Toyohashi venue. While manager Ryu noted that the overall performance was not yet at 100 percent satisfaction, the victory provided essential momentum ahead of the rematch with Japan.
“Kim Do-young hit the right pitches in his final sequence, and we can look forward to tomorrow’s game,” Ryu said following the victory over China.
Gwak earned the nod to take the mound as the starter for the gold-medal game. Selected in the first round by the Doosan Bears in 2018, the right-hander has compiled a career mark of 58 wins and 47 losses with a 3.69 ERA across 178 appearances spanning 836.2 innings. His campaign featured 26 appearances and 155 innings, producing an 11-7 record.
To overcome Japan’s pitching staff, Korea’s batting order must solve the tactical challenges that stymied them on October 25. Aside from consistent contributions throughout the tournament from Kim Ju-won of the NC Dinos and Park Jun-soon of Doosan, the lineup had experienced significant variance in production.
Signs of offensive recovery emerged against China. Kim Do-young of the KIA Tigers notched a hit and an RBI in four at-bats, Noh Si-hwan of the Hanwha Eagles went 2-for-5 with two hits, and Moon Hyun-bin of Hanwha added a hit in four trips to the plate. Further down the order, Kim Ji-chan of the Samsung Lions contributed two hits and an RBI in four at-bats, and Cho Hyung-yu of the SSG Landers chipped in two hits and an RBI in three at-bats.
The championship game between South Korea and Japan is scheduled for October 27 at the Toyohashi Municipal Baseball Stadium, where Manager Ryu’s roster aims to lock up the tournament’s ultimate prize and extend the nation’s continental dominance.
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