Israel Wins Third Straight To Advance In World Baseball Classic

With a victory over Taiwan on Tuesday night, Israel would be in good position to advance to the second round.

In the fourth frame, Didi Gregorius doubled to knock in two runs and Ricardo sent another runner home on a single to take a 4-2 lead.

Japan, a two-time victor, and Mexico are also hosting pools of four teams, along with the United States, which is looking for its first WBC title. After winning the qualifier in 2016, they found themselves in Pool A for Round 1 of the tournament, with Chinese Taipei (their next opponent), the aforementioned Korea, and the Netherlands.

Israel has been the story of the tournament to date.

Korea: Our favorite, Dae-ho Lee, is on the team.

Speaking of the Netherlands, many consider the Dutch a serious championship contender.

These two teams are scheduled to meet again in the second round, which begins on Saturday, March 11.

“It’s been a ideal trip in every regard”. This morning’s game between Team Korea and Team Israel was a flawless example of that and there will be plenty of noise to be made in the other games that take place during the classic.

Not to take anything away from what Israel’s done but it’s a team that’s populated by professionals who get to represent the country just because they have some link – parental, mainly – to Israel.

“I’m not insane. It’s the game of baseball I want to play”.

Israel’s first two games were televised in the U.S.by MLB Network. Israel’s early (and often) scoring had done them in.

A win will also give Israel a spot in the next round, eliminating the hosts South Korea in the process. “That’s a very scary team”, he said. “We need to take care of what we’re doing here right now and when we know we’re going to be in next round, then we’ll start talking about the next round”.

Early Wednesday morning, the Netherlands topped Chinese Taipei on, yes, a walk-off walk.

The manager of the Israeli team, ranked No. 41 in the world and cobbled together of Jewish-American journeymen, is former UM assistant coach Jerry Weinstein. “I think the Mensch reflects the pride that this team has in their Jewish heritage and sense of humor around having fun while playing the game of baseball”.

On Wednesday night, Israel struck first with a three-run first inning, including a double by first baseman Nate Freiman, giving the Major League Baseball free agent five RBI in three games in the WBC.

In their next at-bat, Taiwan went in front with two runs on a wild pitch by Jair Jurrjens and a sacrifice fly by Lin Chih-sheng. Ryan Lavarnway singled in the final run of the inning that put Israel ahead 3-0. Baker would throw an impressive 4 ⅔ scoreless innings, striking out three, while Chun-Lin Kuo was chased before he could record three outs.

On the flip side, Cuba is still a solid bet to advance to the next round, but the loss limits its margin for error over the next two games.

As noted, former A’s prospect Rickles got am RBI on a pinch-hit single in the eighth inning.

The game, which ended around 1:30 a.m.