SAN DIEGO -- The magic carpet ride Team Korea has been on for nearly three weeks was grounded Saturday night, landing one stop short of the final destination.
After holding the opposition to eight runs in its first 60 innings during the World Baseball Classic, Korea succumbed to a five-run barrage in the seventh inning and dropped a rain-interrupted 6-0 decision to Japan before 42,639 at PETCO Park.
The loss ended Korea\'s six-game winning streak, and kept it from playing Cuba in Monday night\'s championship game. Even so, the team captured the respect of baseball fans around the world, playing seven error-free games and pitching lights-out until the decisive seventh inning, when two pinch-hits, including a two-run home run by Kosuke Fukudome off reliever Byung-Hyun Kim, put a damper on a damp night.
Fukodome batted for Toshiaki Imae with one out and one on and sent a Kim pitch into the right-field seats, snapping a scoreless deadlock. A hit batter, a double and three consecutive singles, including a pinch-hit single by Shinya Miyamoto, added three more runs, silencing a pro-Korea crowd.
"It was a big game and great competition," said Korea pitcher Chan Ho Park, who would have started Monday night against Cuba. "We already had beaten Japan twice, but we understood that the Japanese team had much hurt from those two games.
"They are good, and have been the No. 1 team in Asia for a long time. I understood how much they wanted to win today, and I hope they win the championship."
Park said he was proud of the way Team Korea played in the inaugural tournament, and was especially pleased with the support the team received from fans far away from Seoul.
"We played a game, but we brought a lot of Koreans together," he said. "You can\'t believe how people came together. We heard so many good things from the stands, and a lot of people wore blue shirts."
The Korean fan support, which was boisterous in Anaheim during the team\'s Round 2 victory over Japan, was out in force again on a cool, drizzly Saturday. One of the backers was wide receiver Hines Ward, the Most Valuable Player in the Pittsburgh Steelers\' Super Bowl victory.
He had a primo seat near the Korean dugout, and wore a light blue baseball cap with a big white "K" on the front. Ward\'s mother is Korean.
The 29-year-old Ward, a four-time Pro Bowl receiver and the Steelers\' career receiving leader, was born in Seoul, but left with his mother and father at age 1 and settled in the United States, where Ward\'s mom hoped society would be more accepting of the multiracial family.
For the past three weeks, Team Korea received support from all over, including the government in Seoul.
Heck, just reaching the semifinals had its reward for 11 Korean players.
The South Korean Defense Ministry will soon introduce a bill that exempts the players from the usual two-year compulsory military service.
Every eligible South Korean man must serve in the military for an average of two years, a legacy of the long standoff with communist North Korea. The 1950-53 Korean War ended without a peace treaty, and the two Koreas technically remain at war. But making the semifinals exempted the eligible players from service.
A different kind of defense was a key part of Team Korea\'s march to the semis, and the first two times archrival Japan threatened to score in Saturday night\'s game, good plays kept the game scoreless for starter Jae Weong Seo.
Third baseman Bum Ho Lee made a dandy short-hop stop of a chopper hit by Nobuhiko Matsunaka to end the first inning. Right fielder Jin Young Lee made another dazzling defensive play, going towards the right-field line to make a leaping catch to end the second inning, and a line drive to Bum Ho with runners on first and second bases in the third inning turned into a double play.
But the most eye-popping defensive play occurred in the fourth inning, when Japan left fielder Hitoshi Tamura raced into the corner, not far from the Western Metal Supply Company building, and hauled in a long drive hit by Byung Kyu Lee. The ball was foul, but the catch was so good that Japan pitcher Koji Uehara put his hands above his head and applauded, right along with many of the fans.', tagline: 'Jim Street is a national reporter for MLB.com.', summary: null, article_photo: { caption: 'Jae Weong Seo tossed five shutout innings against Japan on Saturday night.', credit: 'Ted S. Warren/AP', path: '/images/2006/03/18/t7HozG5v.jpg' }, sub_headline: 'Bullpen can\'t keep Japan down after Seo\'s strong start', alt_headline: 'Korea comes up short in finals bid', related_links: null, headline: 'Korea comes up short in finals bid' }