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After 16 teams fight for 38 games, only Japan and Cuba left, and the winner will be the first championship for World Baseball Classic.
Semifinal:
Cuba 3, Dominican Republic 1
CUBA - 000 000 300 -- 3 DOMINICAN REP - 000 001 000 -- 1
Behind an offense of players known primarily only in their native land, Cuba stunned a Dominican Republic squad made up of some of the most famous players in the world, 3-1, in the first game of the semifinals at PETCO Park on Saturday afternoon.
The Cuban National team is accustomed to winning. After all, this club is 22-2 in international play, dating back to 2001. First, it beat Venezuela. Next was Puerto Rico. And now, the Dominican Republic — which arguably was its best win, ever. Cuba silenced a ferocious lineup in front of a sellout crowd of 41,268 and a nationally televised audience of millions, and did it on U.S. soil, a rarity in its rich baseball history.
JAPAN - 000 000 510 -- 6 KOREA - 000 000 000 -- 0
Kosuke Fukudome came off the bench with one out in the seventh inning and poled a two-run pinch-hit homer into the right-field seats at PETCO Park off Kim, the beleaguered Byung-Hyun Kim. And suddenly, the Japanese are on their way to the World Baseball Classic finals and a matchup against Cuba for the inaugural championship on Monday at 9 p.m. ET.
After holding the opposition to eight runs in its first 60 innings during the World Baseball Classic, Korea succumbed to a five-run barrage in the seventh inning and dropped a rain-interrupted 6-0 decision to Japan before 42,639 at PETCO Park. The loss ended Korea’s six-game winning streak, and kept it from playing Cuba in Monday night’s championship game.
