Korea and Cuba finished first and second in the preliminary round of the Olympic Baseball tournament. Thanks to victories today in their respective semi-finals, they will finish in the top two medal positions as well, although it’s anyone’s guess which one will end up with the gold medal.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In the 2006 World Baseball Classic, Korea beat Japan twice in the group stages only to lose to them in the semi-finals.\u00c2\u00a0 Having defeated their Asian rivals 5-3 in the Preliminary round here, Korea made sure they didn’t make the same mistake again.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Japan plated two runs off Korea’s starter Kwanghyun Kim over the first three innings, but he settled down and gave up no further runs during his eight inning performance.<\/p>\n
The game was finely balanced heading into the eighth inning, with Korea scoring their second run of the game in the bottom of the seventh to draw level at 2-2. Hitoki Iwase came in to pitch the eighth inning for Japan and promptly gave up a two-run homer to Seungyuop Lee.\u00c2\u00a0 It looked like he had escaped from the inning with no further damage when Youngmin Ko hit a flyball to Takahiko Sato with two outs and a runner on first base; however the left fielder dropped the ball, allowing the runner to score and keeping the inning alive.\u00c2\u00a0 Ko came around to score on a double to give Korea a 6-2 advantage as Japan came to bat in the top of the ninth.\u00c2\u00a0 Suk Min Yoon came in to the game for Korea and Japan, with their tournament on the line, were unable to mount a comeback.\u00c2\u00a0 Two fly-outs to right field and a strike out ended the game.\u00c2\u00a0 Korea won 6-2<\/a> and sat back in the Beijing evening to see who they would face in the final.<\/p>\n The second semi-final saw Cuba take on the United States: bitter rivals both on and off the field.\u00c2\u00a0 Baseball fans all over the world would love to see the two teams matching up with their strongest sides.\u00c2\u00a0 While Cuba can field most of their top players, the U.S. can only pick from the Minor Leagues for the Olympics.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s perhaps no surprise therefore that Cuba romped home to a 10-2<\/a> victory.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n The winning margin was padded by a six-run eighth inning.\u00c2\u00a0 Jeff Stevens was victimized once again, giving up a three-run blast to Alexei Bell.\u00c2\u00a0 It capped a 2 for 4 performance by the Cuban right fielder, who has been in imperious form throughout the tournament with a batting average of .520.\u00c2\u00a0 Blane Neal was brought in to stop the bleeding, but he could only serve up another three-run homer, this time off the bat of catcher Ariel Pestano.\u00c2\u00a0 The inning extended Cuba’s 4-2 lead to 10-2 and it was a blow that knocked the wind out the the U.S’s sails.\u00c2\u00a0 They got a couple of runners aboard in the top of the ninth, but Cuba’s ace reliever Pedro Lazo kept them from scoring and struck out Lou Marson to end the game, and with it the United States’ Olympic tournament.<\/p>\n The bronze medal match is certainly not a dead rubber.\u00c2\u00a0 Missing out on the final will hurt, but going home with nothing will be a big blow to either team.\u00c2\u00a0 So, Japan and the U.S. will wake up tomorrow determined to get their hands on a medal.\u00c2\u00a0 The game begins at 03.30 am BST and is being broadcast live via the red button on Satellite\/Cable 5 or on the BBC website.<\/p>\n As for the final, it’s too close to call; both teams would be worthy winners.\u00c2\u00a0 Korea are going for an unbeaten tournament.\u00c2\u00a0 Cuba’s only loss came at the hands of their final game opponents and they would love to turn the tables and get the win when it matters the most.\u00c2\u00a0 It promises to be a great game.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, you can’t watch it live in Britain, but it will be broadcast ‘as live’ via the red button on Satellite\/Cable 5 and on the BBC website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Korea and Cuba finished first and second in the preliminary round of the Olympic Baseball tournament. Thanks to victories today in their respective semi-finals, they will finish in the top two medal positions as well, although it’s anyone’s guess which one will end up with the gold medal.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-baseball-2","tag-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4688,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/4688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}