Miami. Puerto Rico beats (4-3) Italy and earns the right to play another elimination game on Friday (7 pm US Eastern Time) against the loser of Thursday’s match up between Team USA and the Dominican Republic.
In front of a 25.787 fan crowd in “Marlins Park” in Miami, mostly supporting Puerto Rrico, Italy took the lead in the third, when Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo drew a pitch by reliever Cedeno in the gap in right center. The bases were loaded and Rizzo’s double scored 3 runs.
Both starting pitchers kept their teams in the game. Alvarado of Puerto Rico left with the bases loaded in the fifth, while Maestri of Italy was relieved after, with runners at first and second, Puerto Rico had failed to advance them on a sacrifice bunt.
“With that bunt we were trying to score 1 or 2, so we could get back in the game” said Puerto Rico manager Edwin Rodriguez.
Chris Cooper brought Team Italy to the eigth with a 3-1 lead. It could have been a 3-0 lead, if shortstop Anthony Granato, so far one of the best players on Team Italy, hadn’t committed a couple of errors.
In the postgame press conference Italy’s manager Marco Mazzieri said: “It’s not fair to point fingers at one player, we are talking about a team sport”.
But after the sixth, he actually sent Granato to the clubhouse and played Jack Santora at shortstop.
Cooper left the game after walking Carlos Beltran to open the eigth inning: Mazzieri went to the bullpen and gave the ball to Nick Pugliese. The newcomer gave up one hit and left to make room for Brian Sweeney. Sweeney had Aviles hit a grounder to Punto, who got the force at second. Italy could not manufacture a double play and Rios followed with a base hit to the right, to make it a runners at the corner situation. A sacrifice fly by pinch hitter Figueroa tied the game and put the go ahead run at third, when Italy’s center fielder tried to get Aviles at home.
On the grounder to shortstop by Andy Gonzalez, Rios ran all the way from second, so when the throw by Santora was off the base, he could score the winning run.
“Our runners were running 100 percent” said Edwin Rodriguez “And that’s the way to go. You put pressure on the defense”.
On the play, your bench exploded: “There’s a lot of emotion, when you are playing for your nation”.
Yadier Molina, who won the World Series with the Cardinals in 2011, commented: “You win the World Series playing as a team. That’s what we did today”.
Italy lost for the second day in a row by one run without using Jason Grilli, their ace reliever.
“I couldn’t ask Jason to go in for more than one inning” said Marco Mazzieri. This tournament is important, but to me what’s more important are these guys”.
Anthony Rizzo did not want to take too much credit for his three-run double: “It was just fortunate it went my way. It was just good for the team, for this program. I think we’ve earned the respect that we didn’t get at all in this tournament”.
Reliever Hiram Burgos earned the win for Puerto Rico pitching 3.2 scoreless innings.
