Things are narrowing down in the WBC. Already Michael Arroyo (Colombia) and Andrés Muñoz (Mexico) have returned to Mariners camp, and they’ll soon be joined by Josh Naylor, whose Team Canada was knocked out in the quarterfinals yesterday.
Yesterday’s matchups and how the Mariners performed:
Dominican Republic 10, Korea 0
To no one’s great suriprise, Team DR run-ruled Korea after seven innings. The Korean team just could not keep up with the offensive onslaught of Team DR. Julio Rodríguez collected a hit, and RBI groundout, and took a walk as part of his
contribution. Austin Wells, who has gotten a lot of flak for being “not Dominican enough” to play on Team DR, had the last laugh with a three-run home run that catapulted this game into mercy-rule territory.
USA 5, Canada 3
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Team USA jumped out to a commanding lead, thought it was job completed, and then almost let Canada squeak back into this one. Bo Naylor cranked a two-run homer off our own Gabe Speier (ouch) in the sixth and Canada was able to add another run on an Otto Lopez single, but that’s as close as they got. This wasn’t exactly a contest where the Mariners involved covered themselves in glory: Speier gave up the aforementioned two-run shot, Josh Naylor went 0-for-4, and Cal Raleigh walked and eventually came around to score but also was hitless with two strikeouts.
These two results set up a barn-burner of a semifinal matchup between the all-business US team and the exuberant joy of Team Dominican Republic. That game will be played on March 15 at 5 PM PT and I assure you I am already fully seated.
Today’s quarterfinal matchups:
Puerto Rico vs. Italy: 12 PM PT, FS1
Venezuela vs. Japan: 6 PM PT, FOX
The winners of each of these matchups will face off against each other in the semifinals on March 16 at 5 PM PT on FS1. The Championship Game will be held on March 17 at 5 PM PT on Fox. I’d suggest a watch party but I feel like bars might have other things going on that day…
