The world number one from Japan has announced his 24-man squad for the WBSC U-23 Baseball World Championship 2024which takes place from September 6 to 15 in Shaoxing, China.

The squad consists of players who are active in the so-called Industrial Leagues.

PITCHERS (9) Oga Nishimura, Kosei Nagakubo, Kosuke Sasamori, Koki Taniwaki, Ryoju Goto, Aren Sato, Yuto Hayashida, Kento Matsuda, Wataru Matsuda.
CATCHERS (3) Ryo Arima, Taishi Noguchi, Shoki Koyama.
INFELDER (7) Takuya Yamada, Yusuke Taura, Ryo Imazato, Takanori Takahashi, Takumi Ishii, Kanta Aiba, Kota Takata.
OUTFIELD PLAYERS (5) Shinnosuke Nishimura, Kaito Yoshhikawa, Kazuhiro Ura, Takuma Hayashi, Yuichiro Murakami.

Manager Tomoyasu Kawaguchi (53) is also active in the industrial leagues of the Mitsubishi Motors Corporation. He led Japan to first place in the U-23 Asian Baseball Championship 2023.

His team includes coach Toru Kato, who was part of the 2022 world champions’ staff, as well as coaches Kojiro Yamada and Takechi Tamano.

Samurai Japan are the reigning U-23 world champions after defeating Korea 3-0 in the final of the 2022 WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup at Taipei Tianmu Baseball Stadium.

They compete in Group A and face world-ranked Australia (No. 11), Puerto Rico (No. 12), Colombia (No. 13), Puerto Rico (No. 18) and China (No. 24).

Group B includes No. 4 Korea, No. 5 Chinese Taipei, No. 6 Venezuela, No. 7 Netherlands, No. 20 Nicaragua and No. 34 South Africa.

Japan’s opening match is against Puerto Rico at 19:00 local time.