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Puerto Rico celebrates on field after knocking two time WBC chamion Japan out of the tournament and advancing to the championship game to be held March 19th against the winners of the Semi-Final game 2 between Netherlands and Dominican Republic. (Rick Boots / March 17, 2013) |
Alex Rios slammed a two-run home run in the seventh inning to lead Puerto Rico to a 3-1 victory over two-time defending champ Japan on Sunday in the first semifinal game of the 2013 World Baseball Classic at AT&T Park.
Puerto Rico will meet the winner of Monday night's semifinal matchup between the Dominican Republic and The Netherlands in the finals on Tuesday.
Japan came into the tournament having won the inaugural WBC in San Diego in 2006 and three years later in Los Angeles, but its offense struggled against Puerto Rico's pitching.
Puerto Rico, which eliminated the USA team on Friday in Miami, played its third game in as many days, while Japan had nearly a week's rest since winning its second-round pool in Tokyo.
Puerto Rican righthander Mario Santiago got the win, giving up two hits over 4.1 innings before leaving with forearm tightness.
Japan starter Kento Maeda came into Sunday's game having pitched 10 innings in the WBC while giving up only two hits and no runs, but that streak quickly came to an end. With one out in the top of the first, Maeda surrendered back-to-back walks to Irving Falu and Carlos Beltran. After Yadier struck out swinging, Mike Aviles dropped a soft single into center to bring Falu around with the game's first run.
Japan threatened in the fifth and sixth, but came up empty both times. Hayato Sakamoto started the fifth with a sharp line single to center and went to second on a fielder's choice. Santiago was then replaced by Jose de la Torre, who ended the inning by striking out Atsunori Inaba and Nobuhiro Matsuda. In the sixth, Seiichi Uchikawa tripled to left with two out, but couldn't score.
Puerto Rico added cushion to its lead in the seventh when Aviles singled ahead of Rios' homer about 10 rows deep into the left-field seats.
Japan scored its only run on a triple by Takashi Toritani and a single by Hirokazu Ibata. Uchikawa followed with a single, but the air went out of the rally when he was caught between first and second on an aborted double steal and tagged out by Puerto Rico catcher Yadier Molina.
