By Ian Curtis. Photo by Gabriel Fidler.
Italy’s semifinal run shows the beauty of the World Baseball Classic
Team Italy captain Vinnie Pasquantino says that Italy’s Cinderella run to the World Baseball Classic semifinals is why the WBC should exist.
“Italy was able to watch our game today, and it was on television out there,” Pasquantino said “And we’ve been on the front page of the newspapers. And that is what this tournament is about.”
He says the tournament is about guys — like Team Italy — playing for the love of their country and for the love of baseball, and making an entire country fall in love with the sport.
“Yes, it is about winning the tournament and trying to be the best baseball team, but it’s about getting eyeballs and bringing people together on the sport, which is why I think so many teams are having a blast playing, because you’re playing for your country and you’re playing for that national attention of, hey, look, it’s the Dominican Republic or it’s Venezuela or Nicaragua, wherever the country is, they’re represented,” Pasquantino said. “And yeah, Italy doesn’t have the greatest development in baseball, and that’s what we’re trying to do right now. And if we continue to be successful with this — I mean, there was baseball being played at bistros and cafes in Italy tonight over there. That doesn’t happen.”
Despite the Puerto Rican crowd making the environment hostile for the Italians, Team Italy did not flinch after Willi Castro’s leadoff homer, forcing Puerto Rican starter Seth Lugo out after just 0.1 innings pitched after managing a trio of RBI-singles in the bottom of the first inning.
As the Puerto Ricans made a call to the bullpen and turned to Jovani Morán, Italy was able to add a fourth run on a sac fly by J.J. D’Orazio.
D’Orazio also contributed the second of back-to-back two-run ground-rule doubles in the fourth inning, as the Italians grew their lead to 8-2.
His hit landed fair in deep right field and bounced into foul territory and over the wall, while Andrew Fischer’s hit was ruled fan interference after a fan sitting in the first row in the outfield seats reached down to catch a ball that was headed for the top of the wall.
That was enough for Italy to survive a Puerto Rican rally and advance to the WBC Semifinals — becoming just the second-ever European nation to do so — and give manager Francisco Cervelli one of the best days of his life.
“Imagine doing this for the first time and arrive to the semifinal,” Cervelli said. “It’s amazing. This is great. This is one of the best chapters of my life. It’s incredible. This group is phenomenal.”
Puerto Rico rides crowd to late-inning rally, but cannot seal the deal in 8-6 loss to Italy
Puerto Rico may have made the trip to Houston for its World Baseball Classic quarterfinal against Team Italy, but the crowd at Daikin Park sure made it feel like San Juan.
Puerto Rican fans brought energy — and in some cases, entire bands of instruments — and more flags than the United Nations building to give their squad as much of a home-crowd feel as possible.
And their impact was felt immediately, as leadoff man Willi Castro launched a bomb 381 feet into left center field to give Puerto Rico a 1-0 lead in the first inning.
“I just want to say that we appreciate our Puerto Rican fans,” Puerto Rico manager Yadier Molina said. “They’ve always supported us. When we were in Puerto Rico, at that beautiful ballpark, it was amazing. I know that. There’s also a lot of Puerto Ricans in this city. We knew we had that factor in our favor to see the ballpark full of Puerto Ricans. So many flags out there. We would have loved to have win this game, not just for us, but for them as well.”
Team Puerto Rico was able to bounce back quickly in the second inning after going down 4-1, thanks to Italy’s misfortunes on the mound.
After starter Sam Aldegheri loaded the bases on a pair of walks and a hit-by-pitch, reliever Alek Jacob gifted Puerto Rico another run on another HBP. Jacob was able to escape the bases-loaded jam without giving up anything else, though.
Not so for Italy in the eighth inning, when, down 8-2, Puerto Rico was able to piece together four runs to cut the gap down to 8-6.
As the runs poured in — first on an Eddie Rosario’s fielder’s choice, then a wild pitch that allowed Emmanuel Riveria to scramble home, and finally a Christian Vázquez two-run single — the Puerto Rican fans went wild.
And although Puerto Rico was not able to seal the deal and make it back to the semifinals, the team still received an ovation after the fact when they exited the clubhouse to acknowledge the Puerto Rican supporters.
Molina says the run is still something to be proud of — and those fans who stayed behind certainly agree.
“But I do want to say that I’m very proud of our team, very proud of what we’ve done,” Molina said “It’s a young team. It’s a team that represented our island without any reproach, and they fought to the end. We all fought to the end. We were able to unify a country once more.”