The 2023 World Baseball Classic continues on Wednesday with some high-stakes competition. While a single-elimination quarterfinal match has already been played (see below), round-robin pool is still played in the US. However, the pool game ends on Wednesday night, and from that point on it’s winner-take-all.
Here is a summary of Wednesday’s action.
Wednesday’s WBC results
- Cuba 4, Australia 3 (Quarterfinals)
- Venezuela 5 Israel 1
- Mexico 10, Canada 3
- Dominican Republic vs Puerto Rico, 7pm, FS1
- Colombia vs. United States, 10pm, FS1
Cuba reaches semifinals with narrow win over Aussies
Cuba is one of the last four teams to make their WBC debut since 2006. The one-time baseball power got off to a somewhat unfavorable start this edition of the Classic, but they rallied to get out of the pool game. Early on Wednesday they beat Australia 4-3 at the Tokyo Dome in Japan to advance to the Final Four. Yoan Moncada reached base four times for the Cubans and had a double and a run. 5-foot-9 closer Raidel Martinez secured the save for the Cubans with a perfect ninth place.
The result ends Australia’s run and Cuba travels to Miami for the semi-finals. There, on Sunday, Cuba will meet the winner of the quarter-finals, which will see unbeaten Venezuela take on runners-up from Group C (either Mexico, the United States or Canada).
Mexico advances
Mexico were the first team from Pool C to advance to the next round on Thursday by beating Canada 10-3 in blowout fashion. Ray’s outfielder Randy Arozarena was the driving force as he had two hits and five RBI.
Mexico was caught flat-footed in the tournament, losing their opener to Colombia by an extra innings. They recovered well from that slip, beating both the United States and Canada in dominant fashion. They also weathered a storm from the UK on Tuesday. That put them at 3-1 in the pool game.
Mexico’s opponents in the quarterfinals will be determined later on Wednesday.
The quarter-final places are up in the air
Pool play concludes Wednesday night with two high-stakes matchups: Puerto Rico vs. Dominican Republic in Pool D (7:00 p.m. ET) and United States vs. Colombia in Pool C (10:00 p.m. ET). Here’s how the rest of the eight-team quarterfinals is sorted out:
- Winner Puerto Rico-Dominican Republic advances, loser is eliminated.
- If Team USA beats Colombia, they move up. This in turn means that Colombia and Canada are eliminated.
- If Team USA loses, it comes down to a tiebreak scenario over whether the Americans, Colombia or the Canadians advance.
In other words, we’ll know the full field of Round 2 one way or another after Wednesday’s action.