In the world baseball classic, the United States team finally makes the championship game with a big win over Japan. This will mark the first time that the United States has made the final game since it started in 2006. The U.S. will play Puerto Rico Wednesday night for the title. The game was a pitcher’s duel with only ten total hits between the two teams. Adam Jones, of the United states, continues to do well in the tournament. His groundout put the winning run on the board for the U.S.
Great matchups made for a pitcher’s duel
The Washington Nationals right-hander Tanner Roark started the game for the United States.
He pitched really well in his four innings of work. Tanner pitched four scoreless innings only allowing two hits and a walk. After Roark, Jim Leyland seemed to use every pitcher in the cupboard to work the percentages of right vs left players. Eventually landing on Pat Neshek, of the Phillies, who got the US out of a hard place with two men on with two outs in the bottom of the eighth to keep the one-run lead.
Luke Gregerson was the last of the six relievers used by the United States team closing out the game with a quick and perfect ninth inning. The Japanese right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano pitched a great game. In his six innings of work he only gave up one run, which was unearned, on three hits.
Tomoyuki struck out six and gave up only one walk. The only slip up came off a well-timed error in the fourth that allowed Christian Yelich to get on base.
Errors made for an interesting night
The only slip up while Sugano pitched came off a well-timed error in the fourth that allowed Christian Yelich to get on base. The next batter Andrew McCutchen drove in the run with a single in the fourth.
The winning run came in the eighth inning. Brandon Crawford had singled to get on base when Ian Kinsler hit a double off the wall in left-center.
This got Crawford all the way to third base. Adam Jones was the next batter up and smacked a ball into the dirt for a routine groundout. The ball was bobbled long enough by Matsuda to allow Crawford to score from third putting the United States up 2-1.
"Well, the team that makes mistakes will lose," Japan's manager Hiroki Kokubo said in the press conference after the game. "That's what it means. I cannot blame them, though, for doing that."
