The United States of America moves to its first ever World Baseball Classic final, by virtue of taking down two-time champion Japan in the semifinals on Tuesday night, 2-1. The final will be on Wednesday night at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT in Dodger Stadium vs. Puerto Rico, which is undefeated to this point. 

For at least the first five innings, it was raining in Dodger Stadium, which is a rarity. Sometimes it was pretty steady but it didn’t really let up until the sixth inning. It picked up on occasion the rest of the way as well. The grounds crew had to become involved a few times, notably around home plate and on the mound, obviously. 

 

Christian Yelich hit a relatively hard grounder right at second baseman Ryosuke Kikuchi, and he booted it. 

 

USA would make Japan pay. After a Nolan Arenado strikeout and Eric Hosmer walk, Andrew McCutchen would deliver the two-out, go-ahead single.

 

With one out in the bottom of the sixth inning and Japan trailing 1-0, Kikuchi clubbed a home run off USA reliever Nate Jones to right field. It was a wall-scraper and initially it looked like McCutchen robbed him. Instead, Cutch just missed the ball and the game was tied. 

 

Tanner Roark went for USA and threw four scoreless innings. He allowed only two hits and a walk. There was a timely double play and a hard ball hit or two, but it was mostly soft contact or routine fly balls. He pitched to contact, too, only striking out one. 

 

He was outshined, in my opinion, by Japan starter Tomoyuki Sugano. In six innings of work, he gave up just one run on three hits, but that was an unearned run as mentioned above. He struck out six while walking just one, and that was with two outs and a base to work with. The USA hitters were stuck attempting to check swings often due to being caught so off-guard by his arsenal, too. 

 

Brandon Crawford picked up a one-out single that was hit awfully hard to right in the eighth. Then Ian Kinsler hit a ball that looked like it was going to end up over the left-center fence. Crawford didn’t score due to what looked like caution with the wet/muddy infield. So it was second and third with one out for Adam Jones, who had been clutch throughout the WBC. 

 

It was a soft grounder to third base, but Crawford was coming home on the contact play. He probably would’ve been out, but the weather came into play again, as Japan third baseman Nobuhiro Matsuda couldn’t initially handle the ball and had to call an audible by getting the easy out at first. 

 

And USA would head to the bottom of the eighth with a 2-1 lead. 

 

There was no close call in the ninth inning for Luke Gregerson. He needed only seven pitches to dispatch of Japan’s 5-7 hitters while striking out the final batter. USA is now 5-2 in this tournament with Gregerson saving three games in four appearances.

 

Puerto Rico awaits for all the marbles on Wednesday night at 9 p.m. ET on MLB Network.