St. Petersburg, FL-Five pitchers combined on a three-hit shutout and Jordan Lennerton (Langley, BC) hit a three-run home run as Canada shutout St. Petersburg College 8-0.
The win, Canada’s second in as many days over SPC, came in an exhibition game in preparation for the World Baseball Classic Qualifier set to take place in Regensburg, Germany September 20th-24th.
The following is a rundown of today’s action:
-Canada opened the scoring in the bottom of the first as Adam Loewen (Surrey, BC) doubled to bring in Tyson Gillies (Vancouver, BC) from second base. Canada added two more runs in the first when Shawn Bowman’s (Port Moody, BC) double scored Tim Smith (Toronto, ON) and Loewen.
-Starter Shawn Hill (Georgetown, ON) threw three innings and hit the lead-off batter in the first before retiring nine straight. Hill recorded one strikeout and six ground ball outs.
-Canada added a run in the bottom of the second off a Rene Tosoni (Port Coquitlam, BC) RBI single and another in the fourth when Gillies scored on a sac-fly off the bat of Tim Smith
-Jamie Richmond (Mississauga, ON) came on for the fourth and fifth and allowed only one hit, while striking out two batters.
-Chris Kissock (Trail, BC) pitched the sixth and seventh frames and fanned three, while giving up only two singles.
-In the eighth after Jimmy Van Ostrand (Richmond, BC) walked and Shawn Bowman doubled, Jordan Lennerton clubbed a three-run homer over the fence in left-centre.
-Philippe Valiquette (Montréal, QC) and Tom Boleska (Burlington, ON) closed out the game with scoreless innings in the eighth and ninth respectively.
Canada will have a light workout tomorrow morning before taking on the Baltimore Orioles Fall Instructional League club on Sunday at Noon ET at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota.
The only way to follow the action is by following Baseball Canada Games on Twitter (www.twitter.com/Team_C_Updates).
Coaches, players and staff will fly to Germany on Monday and open the four-team WBC Qualifier on September 20th when they take-on Great Britain at 7pm local time (1pm ET).
