The 2017 World Baseball Classic is now in full swing with all four pools finally in action after Thursday night.
Italy (1-0) 10, Mexico (0-1) 9 Pool D
The Italian team rallied to score five runs off Roberto Osuna and Oliver Perez in the ninth inning to win in walk-off fashion.
Brandon Nimmo started in center field and led off for Italy, he went 1 for 5 with an RBI single in the ninth. Mets infield prospect Gavin Cecchini went 1 for 3 with a double off Mets teammate off Fernando Salas. Cecchini did have a throwing error at shortstop and left the game early after appearing to twist his ankle/foot.
Salas had a rough outing for Mexico, he faced two batters allowing a home run to former Met Drew Butera and the aforementioned double to Cecchini before being pulled.
Dominican Republic (1-0) 9, Canada (0-1) 2 Pool C
The defending champion Dominican team started the tournament off with a bang scoring nine runs on 15 hits.
Jose Reyes went 3 for 5 with a stolen base, two runs scored and a double at the plate. However, he made two very poor throws at shortstop and one of them was scored an error that led to an unearned run.
Mets reliever Hansel Robles allowed a run on two hits and struck out two in his inning of work. Robles should’ve been out of the inning without any runs scored, but neither (both playing out of position) Jose Bautista (LF) nor Gregory Polanco (CF) could make a catch on a fairly routine fly ball to left center. Robles hit 98 MPH on the radar gun with his fastball.
Jeurys Familia only faced one batter to close the game out, though he showed off a 99/100 MPH fastball during the strikeout of Josh Naylor.
Former Met Jonathan Malo scored both of the runs for Canada and had a fine game defensively at shortstop.
Cuba (2-1) 4, Australia (1-2) 3 Pool B
19-year old Yoelkis Cespedes went 0 for 4 with four strikeouts lowering his average to .333 for Cuba in the tournament.
Cuba and Japan will be moving on to the second round of the WBC to Pool E which also includes Israel and the Netherlands.
Team USA plays their first game tonight against Colombia at 6:00 PM E.T. on MLB Network. Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Chris Archer will get the start for the US and will be opposed by Chicago White Sox starter Jose Quintana.
Team Puerto Rico will also play their first game of the 2017 WBC tonight and Seth Lugo gets the start on the mound for them against Venezuela. The game starts at 9:00 PM E.T. on MLB Network.
