Last time they did this WBC thing, Australia went home without making any impact on the world stage. This time, they have done some damage, to none other than Pool B 2nd favorites Mexico.
MEXICO CITY -- Chris Snelling homered twice and Ben Risinger hit a three-run shot as Australia powered past Mexico 17-7 on Sunday in the World Baseball Classic.
The game was stopped after eight innings because of the 10-run mercy rule.
Risinger, Lake Hughes and Andrew Graham each drove in three runs for Australia, which has no players in the majors and was considered one of the underdogs in Pool A. The Australians will play Cuba on Tuesday for a berth in the second round in San Diego.
Mexico will face South Africa in an elimination game.
"The main objective is to move on to the next round, " Mexico manager Vinicio Castilla said. "Today's game holds us back, but we haven't lost anything yet. We have to keep moving forward. ... No one expected this. We are going to stick together and try to get the next one."
Graham's RBI single in the sixth inning scored Brett Roneberg and broke a 7-all tie. Daniel Berg and Trent Oeltjen followed with run-scoring hits to make it 10-7, and Australia's lead was never in jeopardy the rest of the game.
That Andrew Graham, is Andrew Graham of the Kuringai Stealers, thank you very much! He\'s flying the green and old for both Ostraya and the Stealers. The 17-7 score line shows it was an utter slugfest in the late phases of the game, and amazingly, Australia got a mercy rule 8th inning win. Australia set a record for hits in a game for the fledgling WBC tournament on the way to the win. Now, all they have to do is beat Pool B Favorites Cuba or South Africa to get to round 2. Hey, why not?
Thanks to Walk-Off HBP, coach at the Stealers for that heads-up.
Now, is the Sydney Morning Herald reporting this historic win? No.
UPDATE: Here's The Australian's take. It's the AFP version.
USA Crushes Venezuela
It's one of those games where you think the USA is doing to Venezuela what GWB wanted to do to Chavez. :)
It was an 87-mph fastball thrown by a 25-year-old Venezuelan right-hander who's never sniffed the major leagues. And when Adam Dunn saw it, he smoked it, and then a small smirk pursed his lips as he looked into his home dugout.
"I thought that was going to hit the top of the dome," second baseman Dustin Pedroia said.
It didn't reach that high, but Dunn's mammoth shot to right field in the seventh inning of this World Baseball Classic game seemed to be the punctuation mark in Team USA's 15-6 win over Venezuela on Sunday night. The Americans will be advancing to the second round of this tournament, and in their first two games, they've proven they can win close in a hostile, playoff-like atmosphere in a packed dome, and via blowout before 13,000 people, most of whom were yelling, whistling and waving flags in support of Venezuela.
On Saturday, it was J.J. Putz closing a 6-5 win against Team Canada in front of a raucous, pro-Canada home crowd at the Rogers Centre, a scene that led Putz to say it was the most intense experience of his baseball career. A night later, it was a cumulative effort by a Team USA lineup that pumped out 16 hits and 15 runs against seven Venezuelan pitchers.
Now, if you really want to see a classic Derek Jeter interview, watch the video on the page. The Yankee captain and now Captain America actually mouths the classic 'one-game-at-a-time' cliche. Talk about Mr. Dependable.
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