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 tomorrow we can shock the world."
Canada's opponent on Tuesday (7 p.m. start time) is the powerhouse of the baseball world, Cuba.
On Tuesday, see The Citizen and pgcitizen.ca for more.
