Photo by Harry How/Getty Images
It has been a great three weeks of world style baseball and now we come down to the final two teams, United States and Puerto Rico for the chance to be crowned World Baseball Classic champions.
On Monday, the Puerto Rico took care of the Netherlands with an 11 inning walk-off 4-3 victory and on Tuesday, USA edged previously unbeaten Japan by a score of 2-1.
The United States pitchers shut down the Japan offense for 4.2 innings before giving up a solo run in the bottom of the sixth inning. During the classic, Japan averaged 6.5 runs per game.
As for the US offense, they couldn’t get anything going until the 4th inning, when they finally broke through with a run highlighted by an Andrew McCutchen RBI single, scoring Christian Yelich, who reached base earlier on a fielding error.
But in the bottom of the sixth inning, Japan tied the game when Ryosuke Kikuchi homered on a 1-2 pitch, sending the ball soaring over the center field wall.
Team USA answered back in the top of the eighth scoring the lead run when Brandon Crawford scored ahead of an Adam Jones ground out.
After the Japan home run in the sixth inning, the United States pitchers shut down Japan’s offense, allowing just one single the rest of the game, to secure the 2-1 victory.
On Wednesday night there will be a new champion crowned as the United States and Puerto Rico will battle for the Classic title.
David Conde
David is the Co-Founder and Executive Editor of Legends On Deck®, as well as a Co-Host on Legends On Deck Podcast. David was a Senior Editor for MetsMerizedOnline.com, MetsMinors.net and Contributor for Hardballchat.com that spanned from 2010 to 2014. David made his MLB Debut as a writer in June 2014, while covering the NY Mets at Citi Field, for MetsmerizedOnline.com. David also coaches baseball for ages 13-15, a Babe Ruth League team in his local community. David's passion is coaching the game he loves to the future Legends of Tomorrow as well as making available a website that people can have fun sharing and reading. David is also passionate about his career as a Mortgage Loan Officer which allows him to help many families reach their dreams of owning a home. Connect with David via his Social Media pages as he loves to chat all about baseball.
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