{"id":604844,"date":"2026-03-04T02:28:39","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T02:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/604844\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T02:28:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T02:28:39","slug":"i-wanted-to-play-in-the-2023-tournament-as-a-member-of-the-national-team-but-i-couldnt-achieve-my","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/604844\/","title":{"rendered":"“I wanted to play in the 2023 tournament as a member of the national team, but I couldn’t achieve my.."},"content":{"rendered":"

“I wanted to play in the 2023 tournament as a member of the national team, but I couldn’t achieve my wish then.”<\/p>\n

Dane Dunning (Seattle Mariners) is serious about Korean baseball. He is now poised to lead Ryu Ji-hyun’s performance at the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC), which will kick off.<\/p>\n

The South Korean national baseball team, led by head coach Ryu Ji-hyun, defeated the Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) Orix Buffaloes 8-5 in a warm-up match held at Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan on the 3rd. The national team, which drew 3-3 with the Hanshin Tigers the previous day (2nd), has entered the tournament schedule in a good mood after finishing the official warm-up match with one win and one draw.<\/p>\n

\"At \uc0ac\uc9c4 \ud655\ub300 At the World Baseball Classic warm-up match between the Korean national team and the Orix Buffaloes in Japanese pro baseball at Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan on Sunday. Korean pitcher Dane Dunning (right) enters the dugout to cheer up Shay Wittcomb and each other after finishing the third inning without allowing a run. Photo = Yonhap News \"The \uc0ac\uc9c4 \ud655\ub300 The World Baseball Classic warm-up match between the Korean national team and the Orix Buffaloes of the Japanese professional baseball league took place at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan on the 3rd. South Korean starting pitcher Dane Dunning is pitching hard. Photo = Yonhap News <\/p>\n

It was a brilliant game for Dunning, a starter born to an American father and a Korean mother. He showed excellent crisis management ability and suppressed runs.<\/p>\n

It was a good start. In the bottom of the first inning, leadoff hitter Mune Yuma received a heavy hit, but he turned back Nishikawa Ryoma (right-handed fly), Kotaro Kurebayashi (three strikeouts), and Ryo Otari (a ground ball to second base) one after another. In the bottom of the second inning, he led Bob Simore to a fly to center field and allowed Daishi Hirooka to double on the right field line, but he cooked Nakagawa Keita and Sugisawa Ryu with a grounder to shortstop and a fly to center field, respectively.<\/p>\n

White rice was in the bottom of the third inning. Sho Fukunaka and Mune were led to a grounder to shortstop and a grounder to second base, respectively, but errors by Kim Joo-won (NC Dinos) and Kim Hye-sung (LA Dodgers) drove them to first and third bases with no outs. But it didn’t shake. Nishikawa (second baseman fly), Kurebayashi (striker fly), and Ota (striker ground ball) all tied up with miscues and finished his duties on the day.<\/p>\n

The final result was three hits, one strikeout and no run in three innings. The total number of pitches was only 37.<\/p>\n

\"The \uc0ac\uc9c4 \ud655\ub300 The World Baseball Classic warm-up match between the Korean national team and the Orix Buffaloes of the Japanese professional baseball league took place at the Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan on the 3rd. South Korean starting pitcher Dane Dunning is heading to the dugout after finishing the bottom of the first inning without allowing a run. Photo = Yonhap News \"South \uc0ac\uc9c4 \ud655\ub300 South Korean coach Ryu Ji-hyun, who won the World Baseball Classic (WBC) warm-up match against the Korean national team and the Orix Buffaloes in Japanese professional baseball 8-5 at Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan, greets the crowd on the 3rd. Photo = Yonhap News <\/p>\n

After the game, coach Ryu Ji-hyun said, “(Dunning) has been a pleasant person since our first meeting in March last year. There is sincerity about the Korean national team, as well as the expression of words. He is a player with all of his baseball abilities, he said. “If we meet at the national team, let’s make a really good result.” A pitch as good as expected came out. In such a situation, I have expectations for the pitch and I expect that I will take the mound in a good mood (in the main tournament in the future),” he said with a thumbs-up.<\/p>\n

Dunning said, “I focused on aggressively pitching strikes today. Also, I went to the mound with an operation that thought it would work well if I mixed and threw several pitches I had,” he said. “Captor Park Dong-won led me well, so I was able to show good pitching. “I was able to throw comfortably without feeling too much pressure because the batters exploded and scored a lot in the second inning,” he said with a bright smile.<\/p>\n

Dunning, who was called by the Washington Nationals as the 29th overall first round in the 2016 draft, is a right-hander who has since gone through the Chicago White Sox, Texas Rangers and Atlanta Braves. He made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut in 2020 and recorded 28 wins, 32 losses, 2 saves and an ERA of 4.44 in 136 big league games (593.1 innings).<\/p>\n

\"At \uc0ac\uc9c4 \ud655\ub300 At the World Baseball Classic warm-up match between the Korean national team and the Orix Buffaloes in Japanese pro baseball at Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan on Sunday. Korean Dane Dunning, who finished the third inning without allowing a run, is smiling as he heads to the dugout. Photo = Yonhap News <\/p>\n

In particular, his performance in 2023 was good. In 35 games (172.2 innings), he led Texas to the World Series with a 12-7 record with a 3.70 ERA with two holds.<\/p>\n

This Dunning is serious about Korean baseball. To the point where I have a Korean tattoo of ‘same blood’ on my left arm. Originally, he tried to play in the 2023 WBC with the national flag, but unfortunately, he failed to achieve his goal due to injury.<\/p>\n

Dunning said, “I wanted to play as a member of the national team in the 2023 tournament, but I couldn’t achieve my wish at that time. I’ve been selected to the national team this time and I’m living with a very fun and exciting heart,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. Will Dunning, who has such great affection for Korea, be able to lead Ryu Ji-hyun to a higher level by playing well in the main competition.<\/p>\n

\"At \uc0ac\uc9c4 \ud655\ub300 At the World Baseball Classic warm-up match between the Korean national team and the Orix Buffaloes of Japanese pro baseball at Kyocera Dome in Osaka, Japan on Sunday. Korean Dane Dunning, who finished the third inning without allowing a single run, is heading to the dugout to talk to Lee Jung-hoo. Photo = Yonhap News <\/p>\n

[Lee Hanjoo, MK Sports Reporter]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“I wanted to play in the 2023 tournament as a member of the national team, but I couldn’t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2302],"tags":[5,2353,2352],"class_list":{"0":"post-604844","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\/116168552444080205","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604844","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=604844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}