Another night of great P.R. for baseball
Puerto Rico reaches WBC final with a riveting victory that reflects well on sport.
The pure joy of baseball was on display, the exuberance of Wladimir Balentien flicking his bat aside and pounding his chest after a home run, the hops on Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa as they leaped skyward for midair highfives, the triumphant bodily thrusts of Javier Baez as he threw out a runner at home plate, the giddiness of Enrique Hernandez celebrating a teammate’s home run by charging out of the dugout draped in a Puerto Rican flag, even the bat flip of Kailan Sams after what he thought was ball four but was actually ball three.
The joy was on display in the stands too. Dodger Stadium was not even half full Monday night, but the historic ballpark shook to the rhythm of whistles, cowbells, tambourines, maracas and drums. The Dodgers ought to give out those instruments during the season, not ban them.
Not every game during the season can be so tense, of course, but this one was an absolute delight, another classic in a World Baseball Classic full of them. This was a festival for more than four hours, closing time forced by the international tiebreaker rule.
Eddie Rosario was the hero, delivering the basesloaded sacrifice fly that gave Puerto Rico a 4-3 victory over the Netherlands in 11 incredibly compelling innings. The Puerto Rican team exploded from its dugout and basically swallowed Rosario on the field.
Rosario sent Puerto Rico into its second consecutive WBC title game. The United States and Japan play in the other semifinal Tuesday, with the winner facing the Puerto Ricans for the championship Wednesday.
“Guys were pouring their hearts out,” Netherlands Manager Hensley Meulens said.
Puerto Rico retired the Netherlands in the top of the 11th inning, on a basesloaded double play, with pitcher Edwin Diaz hopping, skipping and jumping off the field, and with Lindor waving at the Puerto Rico fans behind the dugout to get up and scream.
The crowd did not need the encouragement but loved it anyway.
Kenley Jansen, the Dodgers’ closer, had declined to fly to Asia to play for the Netherlands in the first two rounds. As the season edged closer and he tuned up in spring training he elected to play for his homeland here.
He drew the ninth inning, entering to wild applause and his signature “California Love” song. He retired Puerto Rico on nine pitches, from 93-96 mph. That sent the game into extra innings, in a 3-3 tie.
Jansen did not return, even though he had thrown so few pitches, because one inning was all he was allowed.
“That was the deal we had with the Dodgers,” Meulens said.
Diaz, the Seattle Mariners’ closer, struck out the side for Puerto Rico in the 10th. That included a highand-tight pitch to Balentien that nearly prompted a benches-clearing brawl, but catcher Yadier Molina stepped in front of Balentien and waited there until the situation was defused — a wait long enough that some Netherlands relievers had left their bullpen and had to return before the game could continue.
In the 10th, the Netherlands turned to 7-foot-1 minor league journeyman Loek van Mil. Naturally, he worked a scoreless inning, including getting Correa to hit into a double play.
Molina, the heart and soul of the Puerto Rican team, already had saved his mates repeatedly. He caught Andrelton Simmons off second base and Jurickson Profar off first in the first inning, the first two outs his team recorded. The Netherlands scored twice in the inning anyway, so Molina might have been all that stood between Puerto Rico and a 4-0 deficit.
Meulens called them “baserunning blunders” that became huge, particularly since he said his players were warned about Molina’s throwing ability.
The Profar play particularly irked Meulens, since Molina threw Profar out while he was enjoying his hit, after tagging first base but before returning to it.
In the fifth inning, when former Dodgers minor leaguer Shawn Zarraga doubled and appeared to give the Netherlands the lead, Molina did a superb job of taking a marvelous relay throw from Baez, forcing Jonathan Schoop wide and tagging him out.
The teams traded tworun homers in the first inning — Balentien for the Netherlands, Correa for Puerto Rico — and T.J. Rivera homered in the second to give Puerto Rico a 3-2 lead. Although Schoop was thrown out trying to score from first on Zarraga’s double, Balentien scored ahead of him, tying it at 3-3.