SI:AM | Who’s In, Who’s Out as WBC Moves to Knockout Stage

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. In case you missed it, our latest Stadium Wonders video dropped yesterday. For this one, I went to the University of New Mexico to tour The Pit, one of the loudest venues in college basketball and the only one that’s dug 37 feet below ground.

In today’s SI:AM:
🏈 Breer’s free agency notes
🏀 Updated men’s bracket
😬 Lousy bubble teams

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Italy saves Team USA

That was a weird 24 hours where we thought Team USA might be eliminated in the opening round of the World Baseball Classic, huh?

After a loss to Italy on Tuesday (and manager Mark DeRosa’s highly publicized misunderstanding of the stakes), the U.S. team was in danger of crashing out of the tournament before the knockout stage for the first time in its history. But Team USA got the help it required when Italy beat Mexico on Wednesday, 9–1, ensuring the U.S. would advance to the next round.

Elsewhere in pool play, Canada continued its hot streak with a 7–2 win over Cuba and the Dominican Republic beat Venezuela, 7–5, in an electric game to determine the Pool D winner.

The quarterfinals will begin on Friday. The schedule looks like this:

South Korea vs. Dominican Republic (6:30 p.m. ET Friday on FS2)
United States vs. Canada (8 p.m. ET Friday on Fox)
Puerto Rico vs. Italy (3 p.m. ET Saturday on FS1)
Venezuela vs. Japan (9 p.m. ET Saturday on Fox)

The biggest impact of Team USA’s loss to Italy this week is that the U.S., as the runner-up in its group, will be the designated away team in its quarterfinal game. Canada will have the advantage of batting last.

This will mark the sixth time that the U.S. and Canada have faced off at the WBC after they were drawn into the same pool in each of the first five editions of the tournament. Canada won the first meeting in 2006, 8–6, but the U.S. won each of the next four, including a 12–1 drubbing in 2023 that ended via the mercy rule.

But Canada is playing well at this year’s tournament. This marks the first time that the Canadians have advanced out of the group stage at the WBC. They did so by beating Puerto Rico in a hostile environment in San Juan on Tuesday and then defeating Cuba on Wednesday. (Cuba missed out on the knockout stage for the first time in its history.) Despite the absence of Freddie Freeman, Canada’s roster is full of MLB talent. Cubs prospect Owen Caissie and MLB veteran Abraham Toro (currently with the Royals as a non-roster invitee) have led the way offensively, complementing higher-profile players like Josh Naylor and Tyler O’Neill. The pitching staff includes Logan Allen, James Paxton, Jameson Taillon and Michael Soroka.

South Korea is also a fresh face in the knockout stage. The Blue Wave haven’t advanced out of the opening round since losing to Japan in the 2009 championship game, and they only advanced this year by the skin of their teeth.

South Korea, Chinese Taipei and Australia all finished 2–2 in Group C, but South Korea narrowly won the tiebreaker of runs allowed per defensive out in games between the tied teams. All three teams allowed seven runs in games against one another, but because South Korea’s game against Chinese Taipei went to extra innings and Chinese Taipei only played one game as the home team, South Korea had an extra half-inning on defense. South Korea, therefore, allowed fewer runs per out.

South Korea will have a hard time reaching the semifinals, though. Its opponent is the Dominican Republic, which looks like the best team in the tournament. The DR is undefeated after beating fellow Latin American power Venezuela on Wednesday. It’s a team full of some of the biggest stars in baseball, like Juan Soto, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Fernando Tatis Jr. and Julio Rodríguez. The pitching staff isn’t as impressive, but the Dominican team has the best lineup in the tournament, leading all teams with 13 home runs and 41 runs scored. That’s bad news for Team USA, too. If the U.S. manages to get past Canada on Friday, it would face the winner of the South Korea-Dominican Republic game in the semis.

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The top five…

… things I saw last night:
5. A wild off-balance three-pointer by Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz to beat the shot clock.
4. Vinnie Pasquantino’s three home runs for Italy against Mexico. He’s the first player in WBC history to have a three-homer game.
3. Pasquantino’s postgame quote about having had a celebratory espresso shot after each of his homers.
2. A whole bunch of clutch saves by Canadiens goalie Jacob Fowler in the final 90 seconds of Montreal’s game against the Senators. (It was only the 11th career NHL start for Fowler, a 21-year-old who grew up in Florida.)
1. Juan Soto’s long first-inning homer that sent the crowd into a frenzy.