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Both teams won their openers, but in much different ways.
The USA used some of the best pitching seen in the tournament so far to completely shut down Mexico, 2-0. Meanwhile, Canada needed 8 South African wild pitches and 3 errors to help stave off an upset with an 11-8 win that might have drained the team's pitching staff.
Dontrelle Willis will get the call to start for the U.S. while Adam Loewen will pitch for Canada. It could be that Canadian manager Ernie Whitt has written off this game as a lost cause and may be saving his big guns for Thursday's crucial game against Mexico. Al Leiter is the scheduled second pitcher of the game for the U.S. Relievers Gary Majewksi, Scot Shields, Huston Street, and Brian Fuentes also haven't pitched. Roger Clemens is expected to start on Friday against South Africa.
The U.S. offense produced just two runs against Mexico, both on solo home runs by Derrek Lee and Chipper Jones.
FINAL SCORE
Holy Paul Henderson!
Canada 8, United States 6
WP -- Adam Loewen
LP -- Dontrelle Willis
Save -- Steve Green
HRs -- Adam Stern (inside the park), Jason Varitek (grand slam)
The US team gets a day off to lick its wounds (and they're considerable) before facing South Africa in a must-win game on Friday at noon PT in Scottsdale.
Canada plays Mexico in what is now a "highly preferable to win" game instead of "must win" game Thursday at 5 pm PT in Phoenix.
Damon and Rodriguez sit. Lee and Texeira swap 1B and DH. Wells in RF.
It would be fun to see.
Number of runs allowed on defense divided by innings played on defense (incl partial innings).
1. Head to head
2. Fewest runs per inning allowed
3. Fewest earned runs per inning allowed
4. Batting average in head to head games
5. Drawing of lots
Oops. Forget about the Francoeur factor there.
Who will Canada use in the 9th? Is Jesse Crain warming up?
I can hear the panicked hearts of Bronx Banter beating wildly out of control all the way over here.
Pardon me?
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