One day after a messy win against the Bahamas, Team Canada was nearly flawless against the Beijing Tigers and elevated its record to 2-0 at the World Baseball Challenge.
In a game played Monday afternoon at Citizen Field, Canada topped the Tigers 6-2. The Canadians got six strong innings from starting pitcher Andrew Brock and rapped out 15 hits, including solo home runs by Darren Doucette, Greg Wallace and Mark Ellis. The six-foot-four, 300-pound Doucette led off the top of the fifth inning with a bomb over the right field fence, while Wallace and Ellis both went deep in the seventh.
"I thought we played a well-rounded game," said the 40-year-old Doucette, a Dartmouth N.S. resident who was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals but never broke into the big leagues. "We kind of took it easy [in a 13-7 Sunday win against the Bahamas] and it almost ended up costing us. We were outplayed the last half of [Sunday's] game and we wanted to make a point of playing a full nine innings today.
"We got contributions from everyone," added Doucette, who tagged a down-and-in change-up from Mao Lei for his home run. "Brocky threw well, we had three home runs and played good defence. That's what you have to do and hopefully [tonight] we can shock the world."
Canada's opponent tonight (7 p.m. start time) is the powerhouse of the baseball world, Cuba. More on that in a moment.
Against the Tigers, Brock's Team Canada mates built him a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning. When the right-hander from Burnaby took to the mound, he had precise control of his pitches and scattered five hits in his six innings of work. Brock walked only one batter -- Xu An in the fifth inning -- and struck out two. Beijing scored its runs in the third and fifth innings, both of them unearned because of errors behind the Canadian chucker.
Brock gave way to Dustin Northcott, Geoff Freeborn and Mark James, each of whom tossed one inning. James, who hits 90 miles per hour on the speed gun, made short work of the Tigers in the bottom of the ninth inning, a good sign considering his struggles in trying to close out the Bahamas on Sunday. In that ninth-inning appearance, he hit the first two batters he faced.
Mao lasted six innings for Beijing and took the loss. He was replaced by Yang Haifan, who was welcomed to the game by Wallace's home run. Three batters later, Ellis connected for his long bomb. With the loss, the Tigers slipped to 0-2 in the tournament.
While Canada was solid up and down the lineup, Prince George's Jeremy Kral shone as brightly as anyone. The 21-year-old catcher was behind the plate for all nine innings and, with a bat in his hands, went 3-for-4. Kral, a Duchess Park graduate who now plays for the Douglas College Royals and the Okotoks Dawgs of the Western Major Baseball League, was making his first WBC appearance after watching fellow P.G. product Brooklyn Foster handle all the catching chores on Sunday.
"I didn't play the first game and I wasn't sure if it was because it was Bahamas or because I was the No. 2 catcher kind of thing," Kral said. "But I really just wanted to play well today and I want to earn more time."
Naturally, Kral was excited about how well he hit the ball.
"It's a good way to start the tournament and I just need to carry it on from here," he said. "I was seeing the ball very good. I'm playing in Okotoks this summer and we're pretty much all [NCAA] Division 1 players from Arizona State and places like that so we play at a really high level. So, it's a lot easier coming back and facing competition like this."
Also Monday, Toshiba Japan beat the Bahamas 7-0. And, in the late game, Cuba downed the Tigers 10-0 and improved its record to 3-0.
Now, Canada gets Cuba. The whole Canadian squad is looking forward to the match-up and the chance to move to 3-0 as well.
"It's going to be a thrill," said Doucette, who has never before shared field space with a Cuban team. "I wish it was something that could have happened when I was younger but it is what it is. Anything can happen in a single game -- baseball's a funny sport and we just have to go out there and take the same approach we did today. We have a shot to beat anybody here."
