MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr., Maikel Garcia and Luis Arraez hit run-scoring, two-out singles in a seventh-inning rally that led Venezuela over Italy 4-2 on Monday night and into its first World Baseball Classic championship game.<\/p>\n
Venezuela overcame a 2-0, fourth-inning deficit after rebounding from a three-run hole to beat defending champion Japan in a quarterfinal and reached the final for the first time after losing to South Korea in its only previous semifinal appearance in 2009. <\/p>\n
It meets the United States for the title on Tuesday night and appears likely to start Eduardo Rodr\u00edguez against the Americans\u2019 Nolan McLean. Because both teams are 5-1, a coin toss was held earlier Monday to determine the home team, and the U.S. won. <\/p>\n
Italy, the first European nation to reach a WBC semifinal, had been 5-0 in the tournament and sparked attention with an espresso-sipping ritual after home runs and victory celebrations featuring Italian wine. <\/p>\n
But a team with three Italy-born players, a handful of major leaguers and many from the minors couldn\u2019t hold a late-inning lead against a batting order that got three straight RBIs from All-Stars as a pro-Venezuelan sellout crowd at loanDepot park roared.<\/p>\n
Italy went ahead in the second when Keider Montero forced in a run with three straight walks, the last to J.J. D\u2019Orazio. Dante Nori hit into a run-scoring forceout against Ricardo S\u00e1nchez, the first of six relievers who combined to finish a five-hitter.<\/p>\n
Eugenio Su\u00e1rez\u2019s fourth-inning homer off Aaron Nola started the comeback, and winner \u00c1ngel Zerpa escaped a bases-loaded jam in the sixth when he threw a sinker on the outside corner past Sam Antonacci.<\/p>\n
Gleyber Torres walked leading off the seventh against loser Michael Lorenzen, and Jackson Chourio\u2019s two-out single put runners at the corners.<\/p>\n
Acu\u00f1a grounded to the shortstop hole and beat Antonacci\u2019s throw from the outfield grass as pinch-runner Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez scored. Garcia lined a 2-0 fastball to left, driving in Chourio with the go-ahead run, and Arraez chased Lorenzen when he singled on a full-count fastball.<\/p>\n
Daniel Palencia got three outs for the save, striking out Antonacci to end the game.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/mlb<\/p>\n
Ronald Blum, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr., Maikel Garcia and Luis Arraez hit run-scoring, two-out singles in a seventh-inning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-541465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541465","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=541465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}