{"id":570305,"date":"2026-02-13T14:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T14:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/570305\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T14:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T14:25:15","slug":"2026-world-baseball-classic-samurai-japan-calls-up-chihiro-sumida-for-wbc-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/570305\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 World Baseball Classic: Samurai Japan Calls Up Chihiro Sumida for WBC Roster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saitama Seibu Lions left-hander\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=sumida000chi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chihiro Sumida<\/a>\u00a0has been called up to Samurai Japan for the 2026 World Baseball Classic, the national team announced on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sumida will replace Hanshin Tigers right-hander\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=ishii-000dai\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daichi Ishii<\/a>, who\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/worldbaseball.com\/kaima-taira-daichi-ishii-withdraw-from-japans-roster-for-world-baseball-classic\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">withdrew from the team on Thursday<\/a>\u00a0after suffering a left Achilles injury during practice. He becomes the second addition from the designated pitcher pool, following\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=fujihi000sho\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shoma Fujihira<\/a>, who was called up earlier to replace the injured\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=taira-000kai\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kaima Taira<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sumida, 26, was the top pitching prospect in the 2021 Nippon Professional Baseball Draft and has steadily developed into one of the league\u2019s premier left-handers. In 2025, he posted a career-best 2.59 ERA (116 ERA+) across 159 \u2154 innings, along with a 23.1% strikeout rate and a 5.3% walk rate, ranking firmly among NPB\u2019s top 10 pitchers by WAR. His changeup and splitter both grade out as elite pitches.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>There was speculation that relievers\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=sugiya000kaz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kazuki Sugiyama<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=matsuy000shi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Shinya Matsuyama<\/a>\u00a0would be selected, but manager\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=ibata-001hir\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hirokazu Ibata<\/a>\u00a0opted for Sumida, whom he is also familiar with in international play, having included him on both the 2023 Asia Professional Baseball Championship and the 2024 WBSC Premier12 rosters. He was particularly impressive in the latter tournament, recording 16 strikeouts without issuing a walk over eight innings while allowing just two runs. That performance included two scoreless relief innings with five strikeouts in the gold medal game versus Chinese Taipei.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sumida will\u00a0likely be\u00a0deployed as a multi-inning reliever during the WBC. With his inclusion, Japan now carries a whopping five left-handed pitchers on the roster, joining\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=miyagi001hir\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hiroya Miyagi<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=sotani000ryu\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ryuhei Sotani<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kikucyu01.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yusei Kikuchi<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/matsuyu01.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Yuki Matsui<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Photo: Chihiro Sumida has been added to Samurai Japan\u2019s roster for the 2026 World Baseball Classic. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saitama Seibu Lions left-hander\u00a0Chihiro Sumida\u00a0has been called up to Samurai Japan for the 2026 World Baseball Classic, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2302],"tags":[5,2353,2352],"class_list":{"0":"post-570305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-npb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-nippon-professional-baseball","10":"tag-npb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116063786184140702","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}