Tokyo: When South Korea was hitting home runs and pounding out hits in exhibition games before the World Baseball Classic (WBC) this week, Japanese manager Hirokazu Ibata took notice.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Japan's WBC title defense will start Friday against Chinese Taipei, but Ibata took a moment on Wednesday to look ahead to the Korea game on the weekend at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo. "First of all, Team Korea has a very great lineup," Ibata said at a pretournament press conference in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency. "They have great right-handed hitters and also great left-handed hitters."

From the right side, sluggers Kim Do-yeong and Ahn Hyun-min have been smacking home runs in scrimmages and official exhibition games, while Shay Whitcomb of the Houston Astros also joined the party. South Korea's left-handed hitters are more contact oriented, led by Lee Jung-hoo of the San Francisco Giants and Kim Hye-seong of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Ibata also brought up South Korea's strong defense. "There is a very tight defense. It's not easy to earn a lot of runs," he said. "I am expecting my pitchers to minimize the runs."

In best-on-best competitions, Japan reeled off a 10-game winning streak against South Korea at one point, before South Korea eked out a 7-7 tie in an exhibition game last November. The deep and talented Japanese roster includes a pair of Dodgers stars, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.