Olympic Baseball: Mexico vs. Japan Picks, Odds, Predictions 7/30/2021

Mexico and Japan face off on Friday in an Olympic baseball showdown at Azuma Stadium in Fukushima. Both of these teams have played one game so far in the Olympic tournament. 

Mexico had high hopes heading into this tournament, but if they want to find that success, this is a must-win. In Mexico’s first game against the Dominican Republic, the offense really struggled not getting on the board, and that led to the 1-0 defeat. Mexico had only four hits in the game and that led to the defeat. No player on Mexico had more than one hit, and in this game, if they want to come away with a victory they need to do a better job of bunching together hits. Mexico also can’t trust the pitching staff is going to give up only one run again in this game. 

On the other side of this matchup is Japan who opened up its Olympics against the Dominican Republic, and it was Japan that was able to come away with the victory. Japan looked to be dead and out in that game, but in the 9th inning, Japan scored three runs, and that led to the 4-3 victory. Murakam was the best player in that first game for Japan, driving in two runs. Even though Japan scored four runs, there still have to be some concerns about this offense and the way they performed, especially early. In this game, Japan needs to find a way to get the offense going early.

Both offenses are going to really struggle in this game early to score runs and that is going to lead to a very low-scoring game. This feels like a 2-1 type of game, and the under is going to cash with ease.