Tijuana, Mexico. – The United States has won the 4th edition of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) by winning the championship game in shutout fashion versus Puerto Rico by an 8-0 score at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California.
This game was a rematch of a 2nd round game a week ago that Puerto Rico held off the US for a 6-5 win at Petco Park in San Diego.
In that ballgame, the ¨Boricuas¨ pounded Marcus Stroman with a big 4 run 1st inning with 6 straight batters getting a hit; the American’s rallied in the 9th to get the score tighten at 6-5 but couldn’t finish the comeback.
The US and specially Stroman were looking for some payback with this time the WBC title at stake.
Runs of the Game:
Team USA took a 2-0 lead in the top of the 3rd inning with a 2 run homerun by Ian Kinsler that barely got over the center field wall; in the 5th inning an RBI single by Christian Yelich & another run scoring single by Andrew McCutchen increased the US lead to 4-0; Brandon Crawford clutch 2 run RBI single to center field with 2 outs with Giancarlo´s Stanton run scoring hit to left field in the 7th inning put the game totally in the red, white & blue hands with a 7-0 advantage; the hit parade continued in the 8th inning with another 2 out RBI hit by McCutchen that basically was the ¨icing on the cake¨ on the ¨stars & stripes victory by the score of 8-0.
Team Puerto Rico only threat to score in the ballgame was in the 7th inning with a leadoff double but couldn’t get him to home plate.
Winning & Losing Pitcher:
For the USA, the winner was right hander Marcus Stroman (1-0) who pitched a no hitter in to the 7th inning; Stroman was on the mound for 6 full innings and one batter in the 7th throwing 73 total pitches (44 strikes) not allowing a run, one hit, one walk and 3 K´s.
For Puerto Rico, the losing pitcher was right hander Seth Lugo (0-1) that had control issues and threw a lot of pitches in his 4+ innings on the hill; Lugo threw 84 total pitches (64 strikes) allowing 4 earned runs, 5 hits (1 home run), 4 walks and 7 strikeouts.
Keys of the US win and Puerto Rico´s loss:
Puerto Rico never could get their high powered offense going against the United States pitching specially against Stroman who was stellar on the mound with full command & movement of his pitches backed up by a defense that had their ¨A¨ game. The ¨Boricuas only got 3 hits the entire game.
United States had a gem plan on offense against Seth Lugo and Puerto Rico´s pitching staff: getting quality at bats that got Lugo´s the pitch count high that got the batters more comfortable in their 3rd time seeing the starter then hits started falling.
After that, they picked a part Puerto Rico´s bullpen by making them work hard for the outs & adding 3 more runs.
USA gets it done and Puerto Rico falls short again:
The USA who got of slow in the tournament but game by game got stronger in every phase finished with 6 wins and 2 losses and finally gets the World Baseball Classic Championship while Puerto Rico who was undefeated entering the title game ended with 7 victories and one defeat to finish runner up for the 2nd straight WBC and also no scoring in either of the championships games.
Sum of the World Baseball Classic:
In general it was a great tournament with great play on the diamond but the black eye is the flaws in the rules in the tie breaking procedure that hopefully will get corrected at the next event.
On the field of play, there were a bunch of unexpected results: Israel getting to the 2nd round and the Netherlands getting to the semifinals were the biggest surprises; the biggest disappointments were team Mexico that failed for the 2nd straight WBC to advance to the 2nd round and the defending champion Dominican Republic that was bounced in the 2nd round.
Photo: MLB.
