PHOENIX- A 9th inning brawl that saw a total of seven players ejected overshadowed a great Canadian performance as Canada defeated Mexico 10-3 to improve their record to 1-1 in Pool D at the World Baseball Classic.
Canada must now beat the United States tomorrow to advance to the second round of the World Baseball Classic which takes place in Miami March 12-15.
The incident took place in the top of the 9th inning with Canada batting as Rene Tosoni (Port Coquitlam, BC) was thrown at intentionally twice before a third pitch hit the Canadian batter causing the benches to clear.
“He had one shot to hit our player and missed him twice,” said Canadian Manger Ernie Whitt. “So, yeah, I mean, something's got to be done about it.”
Canadians Pete Orr (Newmarket, ON), Jay Johnson (Sussex Corner, NB) and Tosoni were all ejected from the game along with four Mexican players.
Canada, coming off an embarrassing mercy-rule loss to Italy the day before, got off to a tremendous start as they put four runs across in the top of the 1st inning. Justin Morneau (New Westminster, BC) who was 4-for-5 on the afternoon with two doubles and three RBI hit his first double of the game to score Taylor Green (Comox, BC) and put Canada on the board.
Michael Saunders (Victoria, BC) then hit a single up the middle that scored Joey Votto (Etobicoke, ON) and Morneau, and Canada was up 3-0.
Saunders kept his hot bat alive as he went 4-for-4 with two doubles and three RBI to improve his tournament average to .857.
Saunders later scored on a Chris Robinson (Dorchester, ON) single before Mexico got one of the runs back in the home half of the first.
Canadian starter Chris Leroux (Mississauga, ON) gave Canada a solid start on the mound as he tossed three innings and gave up only one run on two hits and a walk, while striking out four.
Leroux gave way to Andrew Albers (North Battleford, SK) who allowed two runs in the bottom of the 4th to bring Mexico within one, but shut the door in innings five and six to keep Canada in front.
Canada scored a run in the sixth and two runs each in the seventh and eighth frames to jump in front 9-3.
Reliever Trystan Magnuson (Vancouver, BC) did a tremendous job in the seventh and eighth innings giving up only one walk in two scoreless innings.
After the benches cleared in the top of the 9th Canada added their tenth run of the game and John Axford (Port Dover, ON) tossed a scoreless ninth to seal the win.
Other offensive performers from Canada’s fifteen hit attack included Taylor Green who went 3-for-5 with three runs scored and Chris Robinson who was 2-for-3 with a run scored and an RBI.
With all of the emotion involved in today’s win, Ernie Whitt says Canada must focus on the task at hand tomorrow which is a must-win game against the United States.
“This game's over. We know what we have to do,” he said. “We're out to play baseball tomorrow. It's an unfortunate incident that happened today. We didn't intend for it to happen. It happened. We move on.
“We knew going into today that basically we controlled our destiny. We had to win today; now we have to win tomorrow”
Canada will send 21 year-old Jameson Taillon (The Woodlands, TX) to the mound against Team USA’s Derek Holland.
The game can be seen live in Canada on Sportsnet and in the United States on MLB Network with the first pitch coming at 1:08pm MT/4:08pm ET.
