First World Baseball Classic semifinal set: Dominican Republic vs. United States
The first of two World Baseball Classic semifinals is set.
The Dominican Republic will face the United States for a spot in the championship after both teams won their respective quarterfinal contests on Friday.
The DR defeated Korea 10-0 in a seven-inning mercy rule victory at Miami’s loanDepot park, while the United States held off Canada 5-3 at Houston’s Daikin Park.
First pitch for the semifinal is set for 8 p.m. Sunday at loanDepot park (FS1).
It’s the first meeting between the Dominican Republic and United States in the World Baseball Classic since the 2017 tournament, when they split their two meetings. The DR won 7-5 in the first round. After both teams advanced in the tournament, the United States answered with a 6-3 win in the second round to eliminate the Dominican Republic on its way to winning the tournament for the first time.
This year, the teams took different paths to get to this point.
The Dominican Republic is undefeated, a perfect 5-0 and has dominated throughout the entire tournament.
Friday was no exception.
Catcher Austin Wells capped the game with a three-run home run in the seventh inning to enact the World Baseball Classic’s mercy rule, which ends the game when a team is up by 10 or more runs after seven innings. The DR also scored three runs in the second inning and four runs in the fourth.
Cristopher Sanchez pitched five shutout innings, striking out eight, and Albert Abreu faced the minimum over two scoreless innings in relief as the offense once again racked up runs.
The United States’ path to the semifinal, both in pool play and its quarterfinal on Friday, was a little more dicey.
The United States dropped its pool play finale to Italy and had to wait out the final game — an eventual Italy rout over Mexico — to clinch a spot in the quarterfinals.
On Friday, the USA led Canada 5-0 on a Kyle Schwarber RBI groundout in the first, Alex Bregman two-run single in the third, and RBI singles from Brice Turang and Pete Crow-Armstrong in the sixth. Canada responded with a Ty Black RBI single and Bo Naylor two-run home run in the sixth to cut the deficit to two.
Canada had the tying runs in scoring position with no outs in the seventh before David Bednar got Josh Naylor to pop out and struck out Tyler O’Neill and Owen Caissie to eliminate the threat.
The second semifinal will be between the winners of the two quarterfinal games on Saturday: Puerto Rico vs. Italy at 3 p.m. in Houston, Japan vs. Venezuela at 9 p.m. in Miami. That semifinal will take place at 8 p.m. Monday in Miami.
The World Baseball Classic championship is at 8 p.m. Tuesday at loanDepot park.
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