{"id":530193,"date":"2026-03-11T23:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/530193\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T23:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T23:51:08","slug":"canada-advances-past-world-baseball-classic-first-round-for-first-time-thanks-to-win-over-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/530193\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada advances past World Baseball Classic first round for first time, thanks to win over Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canadian players celebrate at the end of a World Baseball Classic win over Cuba in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Wednesday.Fernando Llano\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Canada advanced past the first round of the World Baseball Classic for the first time, beating Cuba 7-2 Wednesday in a winner-take-all game at San Juan, Puerto Rico, behind Abraham Toro\u2019s homer and Otto Lopez\u2019s two-run single.<\/p>\n

Brothers Bo Naylor and Josh Naylor drove in runs, Owen Caissie had two RBIs and reliever James Paxton struck out six over 2 2\/3 scoreless innings for Canada (3-1), which eliminated the Cubans (2-2) and won Group A over Puerto Rico (3-1). Cuba was knocked out in the first round for the first time.<\/p>\n

Canada and Puerto Rico will play in the quarter-finals in Houston this weekend.<\/p>\n

Cuba finished with three errors, and left fielder Ariel Martinez allowed Toro\u2019s catchable fly starting the seventh to fall for a double. The Canadians broke open the game with a three-run sixth inning that included a dropped popup, a foul pop that fell, a wild pickoff throw and a catcher\u2019s interference call on Andrys Perez, whose passed ball led to Canada\u2019s first run.<\/p>\n

Later Wednesday, Mexico and Italy were to play at Houston in a Group B game that will determine whether the U.S. advances.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Canada’s Otto Lopez runs toward home plate to score against Cuba during the eighth inning of their World Baseball Classic game in San Juan, Puerto Rico on Wednesday.Fernando Llano\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Cuba escaped a bases-loaded jam in the first when Matt Davidson hit an inning-ending popout off loser Livan Moinelo, but Canada went ahead in the third on Caissie\u2019s sacrifice fly. Toro homered in the fifth on a splitter from Yariel Rodr\u00edguez, a 420-foot drive to right.<\/p>\n

Cuba scored in the bottom half on Yoelkis Guibert\u2019s run-scoring groundout off winner Cal Quantrill, who allowed an unearned run and two hits over five innings.<\/p>\n

Canada opened a 3-1 lead in the sixth on Bo Naylor\u2019s RBI double.<\/p>\n

Martinez drove in a run in the bottom half with his third hit and Josh Naylor had an RBI single in the seventh on a soft fly to left that popped up of the glove of Martinez, who tried for a sliding catch.<\/p>\n

Cuba went 1 for 7 with runners in scoring position. Adam Macko escaped a bases-loaded jam in the sixth when Yiddi Cappe swung over a curveball and James Paxton struck out Moncada in the seventh to leave runners at the corners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Canadian players celebrate at the end of a World Baseball Classic win over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530194,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,462,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,82,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-530193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-mlb","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530193\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}