Starting this evening, the World Baseball Classic goes pretty much non-stop through Monday. There are a few hours between the first game in Japan (which is late in the evening US time) and the second game (which is in the middle of the night in Chicago). Then there are a few hours in the morning US time before the end of the second game in Tokyo and the first game in Puerto Rico. But other than that, there will almost always be a WBC game on and often multiple games on at the same time through the weekend
and into early next week.
So I’m going to try to sum things up as best I can. We’ll publish one article a day with every game of the past 24 hours. What games are covered will depend on when I can get in done and published.
Oh, and don’t expect this kind of detail in the writeups when I’m doing eight games a day.
Pool C (Tokyo)
A big defensive miscue in the top of the third inning opened the door and led to a 5-1 win by Australia over Czechia.
Josh Hendrickson, who pitched four years in the Phillies system and reached Triple-A in 2023, pitched the first three innings for Australia. The Aussies fell behind when catcher Martin Červenka, who played ten years in the minors and also got aas high as Triple-A, led off the second inning with a double. After a walk and a sacrifice bunt, Czechia went up 1-0 on a sacrifice fly by Vojtech Mensik. Mensik played college ball for North Carolina State and had half a season in Low-A with the Angels.
Meanwhile, Czechia starter Tomáš Ondra was befuddling the Australians, retiring the first seven batters he faced. But with one out in the third, former Phillies minor leaguer Chris Burke reached on an infield single. The next batter, 39-year-old Tim Kennelly, who spent nine years in the minors, hit a tailor-made double play ball to shortstop Terrin Vavra, the one major leaguer on Czechia. Vavra made the play and got the out at second on an easy toss to Mensik. Mensik made a good throw to first, but first baseman and team captain Martin Mužík, failed to secure the ball in his glove.
So the inning continued and Ondra walked the next batter, followed by a three-run home run by Curtis Mead of the White Sox.
The rest of the game was mostly uneventful. Australia managed to tack on two insurance runs in the top of the ninth on a solo home run by former Brewers farmhand Alex Hall and an RBI single by former Rockies farmhand Robbie Perkins.
Australia now goes to 2-0 with Japan or Korea left to play. Czechia drops to 2-0 and still has matchups with Japan and Chinese Taipei coming up.
Japan 13, Chinese Taipei 0 (7 innings)
The host Samurai Japan made their WBC debut with a bang when they shutout Chinese Taipei 13-0 in a game that ended after seven innings because of the mercy rule.
Chinese Taipei starter Hao-Chun Cheng, who had a short minor league career with the Dodgers, pitched out of trouble in the first inning, but gave up a grand slam to Shohei Ohtani in the top of the second inning. Japan went on to score 10 runs in the second inning and never looked back.
Seiya Suzuki went 1 for 4 with a walk and two runs scored.
Meanwhile, Yoshinobu Yamamoto tossed 2.2 innings of no-hit baseball, although he did walk three while striking out two. Five Japanese pitchers would go on to throw a one-hitter, with the only hit coming as a leadoff single in the sixth inning by former major leaguer Yu Chang.
Coming up in Pool C play, Czechia takes on Chinese Taipei at 9pm Central as the two 0-2 teams try to get a win. Meanwhile, the big matchup between Japan and Korea takes place at 4am Central.
