TAINAN, Taiwan - Team USA suffered its first loss at the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) U-12 Baseball World Cup on Monday evening, falling to the Dominican Republic 13-9 after a tough first inning put it in a hole too deep to dig out of.
The ill-fated opening frame came with a lot of unforced errors for Team USA. Five walks and a hit-by-pitch put traffic on the basepaths early and often, and a pair of errors and three different wild pitches kept the line moving and the defense on the field all throughout. By the time the dust had settled, the Dominican Republic had put six runs up on the scoreboard, leaving the red, white, and blue playing catch-up for the entirety of the game.
Team USA did manage to fight back despite this, bringing the deficit down to four on two separate occasions, but at the end of the day, it proved to be just too much to overcome. With the loss, the team fell to 2-1 in pool play, good for a tie for second place in Group B behind undefeated Korea.
How It Happened
- The Dominican Republic put six runs up on the board in the bottom of the first inning, taking advantage of five walks and two errors to jump out to a big early lead.
- It would add another run in the second, scoring on a wild pitch to make it 7-0.
- The Team USA bats finally got going in the third, with Tyler Early driving in the first run of the game with a base hit and then later scoring from third on a wild pitch.
- They threatened to do more damage in the fourth, loading the bases with two outs, but a successful back-pick at third base cut the golden opportunity short.
- The Dominican Republic took advantage of this, increasing its lead to 9-2 on a monster two-run home run by Kelvin Reyes.
- The stars and stripes answered back soon after, though, scoring three runs in the top of the fifth on an RBI single by Zaylon Johnson and a two-run blast by Gavin Gomez to cut the deficit down to four.
- This wouldn't last long, though, as Gustavo Talmare crushed a one-out grand slam in the sixth to break the game wide open once again.
- A grand slam by Johnson in the final frame got those runs back, but Railyn Cabrera closed out the win for the Dominican Republic two batters later.
Of Note
- The loss snapped the 12U National Team's winning streak in international competition at 23 games, a stretch that dated all the way back to 2019.
- Johnson and Gomez continued their torrid starts to the tournament at the plate, with the former going 2-4 with the grand slam and five RBIs and the latter going 2-4 with his own homer and two RBIs. Johnson now sits at a .714 batting average and a 2.064 OPS, and Gomez at .778 and 2.356, respectively.
- Early also stayed hot with the bat, reaching base three times in his four plate appearances via a hit and two walks.
On Deck
Team USA will try to get back in the win column on Tuesday against Korea, with first pitch set for 6:30 P.M. local time/6:30 A.M. ET.
