Japan beat the U.S. 3-2<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cComing to the WBC here, you dream of representing this country and being here the next time around,\u201d Anthony said.<\/p>\n
American relievers allowed two hits over 4 2\/3 scoreless innings, capped by Mason Miller topping 100 mph with 13 of 22 pitches. Miller’s last appeared to be low for ball four to Geraldo Perdomo but plate umpire Cory Blaser emphatically signaled strike three.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a game we\u2019ll remember forever, right?\u201d U.S. manager Mark DeRosa said. \u201cWe understood this was going to be a talked-about game, probably one of the most watched games of all time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dynamic defense was commonplace.<\/p>\n
With the U.S. trailing by a run in the third, Judge threw a 95.7 mph strike from right field to third base to cut down Fernando Tatis Jr. for the inning’s final out. Judge then made a diving backland catch to rob Soto, his former New York Yankees teammate, in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Julio Rodr\u00edguez denied Judge a home run with a leaping catch at the center-field wall in the fifth, 407 feet from the plate.<\/p>\n
\n
\u201cI was like, OK, maybe we got a shot here,\u201d Judge recalled. \u201cBut hit it to a guy like J-Rod, who\u2019s one of the best if not the best center fielder in the game, he\u2019s going make exciting plays like that in big moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shortstop Bobby Witt ranged to the right field side of the infield to snag Soto’s slow bouncer in the fifth, scrambled to back to touch second base and made an off-balance throw to first for an inning-ending double play. One inning later, Witt threw out Manny Machado at first from the outfield grass.<\/p>\n
Pitching moments were memorable, too.<\/p>\n
Dominican starter Luis Severino stranded runners at second and third in the third inning when he struck out Judge and Kyle Schwarber, and Skenes escaped a bases-loaded jam in the fourth when Austin Wells flied out.<\/p>\n
Wells doubled with one out in the seventh and the relatively slow-footed catcher was held at third on Perdomo’s single to Crow-Armstrong in center. David Bednar then struck out Tatis Jr. and Ketel Marte on breaking balls below the strike zone. <\/p>\n
Before Miller got the strike three call in the ninth, Perdomo had fouled off a pair of full-count pitches.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole world saw in two teams some of the best players in the game,\u201d said Dominican manager Albert Pujols, a likely future Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n
Rosters included 18 of the 41 players who received MVP votes last year.<\/p>\n
Judge gave a postgame speech to teammates, looking ahead to Tuesday’s championship against Venezuela or Italy. He had perceived a special night Sunday from the start.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get chills standing there on the line, hearing them announce all the names,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was like an All-Star team they got over there.\u201d <\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/MLB<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By RONALD BLUM MIAMI (AP) \u2014 On a night when All-Stars and future Hall of Famers thrilled fans…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-543879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}