Cruz homer rallies Dominican Republic past US

I could have cheated and listed Tanner Roark (5.5 WAR), who is expected to follow Marcus Stroman on the mound for Team USA. Manager Ernie Whitt then removed him from the game so he might be available for Canada’s third game this weekend.

The Dominicans’ Edinson Volquez, making his fifth career WBC start, allowed three runs – one earned – in 3 2/3 innings.

Japan was not seriously threatened in the Tokyo Dome and easily qualified for the next round, also in the Tokyo Dome. That would be the high point of Team USA’s tournament.

The Netherlands (2-1) also advanced to the next round. And opening pool play with a loss put that team on the brink of elimination. The totals would be a lot closer if we had better starting pitchers. Twenty-four hours after facing three-hole hitting minor-leaguer Giovanny Urshela (Cleveland), it will see names like Manny Machado (Orioles), Robinson Cano (Seattle Mariners) and Jose Bautista (Toronto Blue Jays) littered top to bottom. It was real and accentuated by the Dominican fans, who greatly outnumbered the USA partisans, banging drums and blowing whistles and horns. The sentence was suspended for two years. The Dominicans’ three homers gave them five in the first two games of the tournament.

The defending WBC champs – who were down 5-0 as late as the sixth inning against the USA – secured a spot in the second-round with their victory and have now won 10 straight games in the tournament. Things changed however in the bottom of the sixth inning, when D.R. struck back with a pair of runs.

Miller threw another slider, hoping to snap off the same pitch he did on the one-strike slider, with that nasty bite that ends up on the back foot of a right-handed batter.

While the USA offense struggled to generate anything against Jose Quintana Friday, it had a runner reach base in each of the first two innings and then got on the board in the third. I’m never going to manage again after this. “We we’re not going to take any chances”.

With the second round still using a double-elimination format, the USA trounced Puerto Rico to enter the winner’s bracket with Gio Gonzalez twirling five scoreless frame and David Wright earning the nickname “Captain America” with a five-RBI performance.

Ah, yes, the powerful Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic had runners on, and nearly added more during a furious rally.

Puerto Rico jumped off to a lead off of Venezuela starter Felix Hernandez in the third inning. Archer had not allowed a hit when he left the game, the longest that a WBC game had ever gone before its first hit.

And that’s because his ultimate goal is to be ready to start the season and pitch opening day. If the Dominican Republic loses to Colombia and the US wins, a three-team tiebreaker based on runs allowed in defensive innings played would decide the top spot in Pool C and the remaining two teams would play a decisive game for the runner-up spot at 6 p.m. Monday.

Suffice to say that, as Crawford stood in against Quintana, things didn’t look good for the Americans.

Although the World Series crowns the best professional baseball team in America as the superior team each year, the World Baseball Classic actually includes teams from around the globe.

Freeman’s RBI single in the first inning gave Canada an early 1-0 lead.