US blanks Canada, advances in WBC

He had five hits in three games including the solo home run against Team USA that started a stretch of seven unanswered runs in the Dominican Republic’s comeback win Saturday. This compares with the United States who have more than 600 players in Major League Baseball and 10 million young people playing the game.

The Americans had to come from behind to snatch a victory in extra innings from a Colombian team full of minor leaguers, and blew a lead late to the Dominicans last night in a 7-5 loss. Apparently, when deciding on how to best use Roark, Jim Leyland skipped over the 2015 season. Many people want to hit Bautista, but giving him first base for free is not advisable. The Americans have reached the second round in all four WBCs but have made it to the semifinals only once and have yet to play in the championship game. That lead would stick until the 6th inning when Colombia dented the plate off a double from Mauricio Ramos, driving in Adrian Sanchez, cutting the Dominican lead to 3-2. But there are two ways to watch the game even without cable login credentials – including a free, legal option. A deep run from the USA will require improvements from that group.

Things turned rocky in the second.

Following in the footsteps of Chris Archer and Marcus Stroman, Duffy gave the USA another strong performance from a starter. “So, it was important for us to get off to a good start, and it was important for us to have Danny get a good start in for us”.

Two of the runs were unearned due to a mishap in the outfield.

One batter later, Marte also homered.

Instead, Miller got only two outs.

William Cuevas gave up an RBI double by Jones and threw a wild pitch that allowed the tying run to score in the sixth. For all the talent on Venezuela, it was Jose Castillo, who pitched for the Padres High-A affiliate in Lake Elsinore last season (and Fort Wayne as well), who came in and pitched a flawless bottom of the inning for the save. At each swing of the bat, the Dominican players swarmed out of their dugout to greet their teammates at the plate.

The Rawlings advisory staff will be led by 2016 All-Stars, Francisco Lindor (Puerto Rico), Manny Machado (Dominican Republic), Nolan Arenado (USA) and Xander Bogaerts (Kingdom of the Netherlands).

Mentioned on Twitter earlier this week how much fun it is to watch meaningful baseball in March, and the responses were actually sort of amusing, given how the WBC tournament has played out.

The Americans have perhaps their best roster ever, including strong pitching, and Danny Duffy became the third consecutive US starter to turn in a scoreless outing.

In this round of Orioles against Orioles, it was the Dominican ones who were the victors, with a big hand from the ex-Oriole, Cruz. The biggest underdogs in the tournament went 3-0 in their pool, and their most famous player is probably the right-hander Jason Marquis, who hasn’t pitched professionally since 2015. They face Canada on Sunday night and Miller won’t pitch because pitchers can’t be used on consecutive days. Look at the USA-Colombia game Friday for proof.