TAINAN, Taiwan – The 12U National Team will look to build on its strong start to the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) U-12 Baseball World Cup against Japan on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. local/2:30 a.m. ET. The game will be streamed live on Gametime OTT (login required) and live stats will be provided here.
Team USA is coming off a 24-0 win over the Czech Republic in the opening game of the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup on Friday. The U.S. clubbed eight homers in the victory, the most it has ever hit in a WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup game.
Jordan Leon (Northridge, Calif.) hit two homers in the opening game victory, driving in a game-high five runs. Both his homers and all five of his RBIs came in Team USA’s 14-run first inning, in which the team hit four homers. Eli Martinez (Beaumont, Calif.) and Trent O’Malley (Great Falls, Va.) also added home runs of their own in the first inning.
Major Ciers (Conroe, Texas), Anthony Frausto (New Braunfels, Texas), Cristian Matos (Belleville, N.J.), and Max Villalva (El Cajon, Calif.) also hit homers for the stars and stripes in Friday’s win. All four of their homers came in a 10-run third inning for Team USA.
The U.S. had seven players in the lineup notch at least two hits on Friday, tallying 20 total team hits. Twelve of the team’s 20 hits went for extra bases, as they had two triples and two doubles to go along with the eight homers.
Dylan Mercado (Houston, Texas) and James Stout III (Artesia, Calif.) combined to toss four shutout frames against the Czech Republic, striking out seven batters. Mercado allowed a pair of singles in the top of the first but those were the only two hits for the Czech Republic in the game.
Saturday’s game will be the fourth all-time matchup between the U.S. and Japan. Team USA is 3-0 all-time against Japan, most recently picking up a 6-3 win at the 2017 WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup. Team USA went on to win the tournament in 2017 to secure its third-consecutive world title.
The U.S., which owns a world-best three world titles at the U-12 level, won all three of its championships in three consecutive events (2013, 2015, 2017). Team USA went 6-2 in the tournament in 2019 but did not earn a medal for the only time in program history.
The 2022 U.S. roster comprises players who were selected from two USA Baseball identification events. Fourteen players on the roster participated in the 2022 Futures Invitational in June and four athletes played in the 2021 National Team Identification Series (NTIS) Champions Cup last summer. In addition, the roster comprises players from nine different states. California leads all states with six representatives, while Texas follows with five players.
The stars and stripes are led by skipper RJ Farrell in 2022, who returns to the post for the second consecutive season. Farrell led the U.S. to an unbeaten record in a three-game exhibition slate in 2021, outscoring opponents 55-3. The manager has a plethora of experience on 12U National Team coaching staffs, spending three seasons as an assistant coach. In that role, he helped lead Team USA to gold medals at the 2017 WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup and the 2018 COPABE U-12 Pan American Championships.
Farrell will be joined on staff by pitching coach Seth Kenny and assistant coaches Troy Gerlach and Tanner Vesely. Kenny will reprise his role as pitching coach in 2022 after making his national team coaching debut a summer ago, when his pitching staff posted a 1.29 ERA and struck out 33 batters in 21 innings pitched. Gerlach assumes the role of assistant coach on the 2022 staff, bringing with him a gold medal from the 2018 WBSC U-15 Baseball World Cup, where he was an assistant coach. Also serving as an assistant is four-time gold medalist Vesely for the second consecutive year. Vesely, who has been a member of six national team staffs, won the 2015 WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup as manager and has been an assistant on three other gold-medal winning squads.
The U.S. is in Group B - which includes Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Japan, and Korea - for the pool play portion of the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup. Three nations from the group will emerge to the Super Round, where they will be joined by the three advancing teams from Group A (Chinese Taipei, Italy, Mexico, Panama, South Africa, and Venezuela).
To follow along with all the action at the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup, be sure to follow @USABaseball12U on Twitter and @USABaseball on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.
