San Juan, Puerto Rico- Canada hit three homeruns and held off Panama in the end to record a 9-5 victory in round two action at the Pan Am Games/World Cup qualification tournament. The win improves Canada’s record to 2-3 (Canada carried over their record against teams also advancing to round two) and takes another step toward qualifying for the 2011 Pan Am Games and 2011 World Cup. Canada built a nine run lead and had a chance to end the game early via the mercy rule, but Panama fought back with five unanswered runs to make the game interesting.
“There was some intensity at the beginning of the game and that’s what we liked,” said Canadian Manager Ernie Whitt. “Panama was a pesky team, they kept coming at us. I’m glad the bats came alive for us today.”
Canada’s offence which has struggled somewhat in the tournament exploded for eight runs in the third inning. Adam Stern (London, ON) provided a spark by delivering a three-run double to open the scoring. Stern advanced to third base on the play when the relay throw went to home plate. Jamie Romak (London, ON) nailed his fourth homer of the tournament and second in as many games to score Stern and put Canada ahead by five. The damage was not complete though as Shawn Bowman (Port Moody, BC) got into the act with a three-run homer deep to left field and Canada was in complete control of the game.
“It’s been one of those tournaments where we’re one big hit away from breaking it open and that’s what we did,” explained Stern of the big third inning. “We were able to piece together a big inning and a lot of guys came through in the clutch.”
Phillippe Aumont (Gatineau, QC) provided yet another solid outing on the mound going five innings, giving up only two hits, walking one and striking out four.
“He threw real well, he threw strikes,” said Whitt. “We got what we wanted out of him which was five innings and we were able to save our bullpen a bit.”
Canada added to their lead in the bottom of the fifth when Adam Loewen (Surrey, BC) went deep with a solo homerun for his second of the tournament. Loewen was hitting in the clean-up spot for the first time in the tournament which was part of a line-up shuffle from the Canadian coaching staff.
“Romak is swinging the bat well so we wanted to move him up and maybe take some pressure off of other guys,” explained Whitt. We moved some of the guys that were swinging the bats a little bit better and it worked out well today.”
Aumont handed the ball over to Tom Boleska (Burlington, ON) who picked up where Aumont left off and shut Panama down in the sixth inning.
After Trystan Magnuson (Vancouver, BC) tossed a scoreless seventh inning Canada had a chance to end the game by getting a runner into scoring position, but failed to cash him in and the game rolled along.
Panama finally got to Magnuson in the eighth by scoring four runs with two of them coming on a two-run homerun.
Not ones to go away quietly, Panama pushed across another run in the ninth off reliever Chris Kissock (Trail, BC). Kissock was replaced in the inning by Jimmy Henderson (Calgary, AB) who retired three straight batters, including two strikeouts to end the game.
Veteran National Team player Stern says the victory was an important one for his team who came off a loss to the Dominican Republic where he admitted they were flat.
“Everything that needed to be said was said after yesterday’s game. We know we didn’t play as well as we’re capable of and we came out here (today) knowing what we had to do. We got after it early and got a big win and we’re proud for the guys.”
Canada will face a stiff test on Sunday as they take on an undefeated Team USA at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan.
“Tomorrow we have to come out and stay on top of our game,” noted Stern. “In the end it comes down to putting our (complete) game together.”
Notes: Game time against Team USA is scheduled for 2pm ET with Mike Johnson (Edmonton, AB) expected to start for Canada…Fans can follow the game live by visiting www.usabaseball.com ... The top seven teams after round two will qualify for the 2011 Pan Am Games and the top six teams will qualify for the 2011 World Cup…Fans can receive live updates from all of Canada’s games by following Baseball Canada on Twitter…Additional tournament coverage including standings, box scores and stats can be found at: http://premundial2010.prnbt.com/ and http://www.baseballdecuba.com/panamericano2010/index.html
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