US routs Cuba to earn return trip to final

Trea Turner homered twice to give him a tournament-leading four, and the defending champion United States romped over Cuba 14-2 on Sunday night to reach its second straight World Baseball Classic final.

Paul Goldschmidt and Cedric Mullins also homered for the Americans, who scored in seven of eight innings — putting up crooked numbers in five of them. Turner and Goldschmidt had four RBIS each.

The U.S. plays Japan or Mexico in Tuesday night’s championship, trying to join the Samurai Warriors as the only nations to win twice.

Turner, hitting No. 9 in the batting order, has a tournament-leading 10 RBIS. He followed his go-ahead, eighth-inning grand slam a night earlier against Venezuela with a solo homer in the second inning off Roenis Elias (0-1) and a threerun drive in the sixth against Elian Leyva.

Cuba went ahead when its first four batters reached off Adam Wainwright (2-0) without getting a ball out of the infield. The 41-year-old right-hander recovered to strand the bases loaded, and the American offense pummeled Cuban pitchers for 14 hits, including eight for extra bases. The U.S. was gifted seven walks.

Goldschmidt hit a goahead, two-run homer in the first on a 112 mph rocket high over the left-field wall. He added a two-run single in the fifth.

St. Louis third baseman Nolan Arenado left after he was hit on a hand by a pitch in the fifth inning, briefly raising another injury concern before X-rays came back as negative. Mets closer Edwin Díaz sustained a season-ending knee injury during the celebration that followed Puerto Rico’s win on Wednesday and Houston second baseman Jose Altuve broke a thumb when hit by a pitch while playing for Venezuela on Saturday.

Cuba and the U.S. met for the first time in the WBC. In the 2008 Olympics, which did not include active big leaguers, Cuba beat manager Davey Johnson’s Americans 5-4 in 11 innings en route to a silver medal. The U.S. took bronze.