Luis Urias on Friday hit the go-ahead single in a three-run seventh inning that fueled Mexico’s 5-4 comeback victory over Puerto Rico to advance to their first-ever World Baseball Classic (WBC) semi-final.
Mexico face Shohei Ohtani and Japan on Tuesday morning Taiwan time.
Puerto Rico failed to make it past the second round for the first time.
Photo: AFP
“What a game. I don’t have a cap with me, but if I did, I’d tip it to Puerto Rico,” Mexico manager Benji Gil said. “We fought until the end. Thank God we managed to come out with a victory against a great team.”
Isaac Paredes, who homered earlier, tied it at 4-4 with a single off losing pitcher Alexis Diaz that drove in Austin Barnes and Tampa Bay Rays outfielder Randy Arozarena.
Puerto Rico tried to rally in the ninth with singles from Christian Vazquez and Francisco Lindor, but reliever Giovanny Gallegos got out of the jam for the save.
Arozarena saved the potential tying run in the eighth when he made a leaping catch at the wall in left center.
“We know what kind of player Randy is. He’s a great player. He killed us,” Puerto Rico manager Yadier Molina said. “We couldn’t score, but they played very well. We started very strong, but then the Mexican pitching made some adjustments and kept us in zeros.”
Puerto Rico were coming off an emotional quarter-final-clinching victory over the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, when New York Mets star closer Edwin Diaz tore the patellar tendon in his right knee while celebrating the win.
The sellout crowd of 35,817 at loanDepot park in Miami on Friday cheered when Diaz’s jersey appeared on the Jumbotron.
Javier Baez and Eddie Rosario homered off Mexico starter Julio Urias in a four-run first inning.
Rosario hit his second home run of the tournament. Baez, in one of his best games of the event, had three hits, giving him seven for the tournament.
“We had a very difficult start to the game, but we know the kind of team we have and how united we are,” Paredes said. “There were many innings remaining and we responded at the zero hour.”
Urias allowed five hits and four runs and struck out four before he was lifted after the fourth inning at 60 pitches, which is 20 fewer than the WBC quarter-finals pitch limit.
JoJo Romero got the win.
Paredes made it 4-1 in the second when he homered against Marcus Stroman, which was one of Mexico’s five hits off Puerto Rico’s starter.
Stroman allowed three singles in the fifth, one of which drove in a run for Mexico to make it 4-2. He had two strikeouts in 4-1-3 innings.
Puerto Rico finished second in the past two WBCs. Earlier in this tournament, their pitchers turned in an all-time performance against Israel in pool play with an eight-innings perfect game.
Mexico won group C with a 3-1 record in pool play.
The US face Venezuela this morning Taiwan time in the other quarter-final.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later