Team USA, champions of the last World Baseball Classic in 2017, began their title defense against Great Britain on Saturday night. (Here’s the full WBC calendar.) The Americans, big favorites thanks to a roster overloaded with All-Stars, still fell early on before taking the lead in the third inning. From there, the Americans were able to cruise to a 6-2 victory.
It’s been six years since the last WBC, so it’s worth rehashing the basics before diving into more details about Team USA’s victory. It should be emphasized that the 20 teams are divided into four pools of five; The teams in each pool play each other once, with the top two teams advancing to the next round. From there, the WBC then boils down to an eight-team single-elimination tournament to determine the champion.
Now that that’s out of the way, you can scroll below to find three things you should know about Team USA’s inaugural win, plus live blog coverage from CBS Sports.
1. Arenado, Schwarber too much to handle
If Team USA is to repeat themselves as WBC champions, that title will likely be credited to a stellar lineup. Imagine how surprising it was to see the Americans fail to plate a run through the first two innings against Vance Worley, a former big league pitcher who played in an independent league last season of the second division had fought.
Team USA’s bats came alive in the third inning when Nolan Arenado leveled the game with a double scored by his St. Louis Cardinals teammate Paul Goldschmidt. Arenado himself then scored with a line drive single from Houston Astros outfielder Kyle Tucker, giving the Americans a 2-1 lead.
Kyle Schwarber extended his lead an inning later and hit a three-run home run to make it 5-1.
Arenado would strike again in the sixth and double again to give the Americans a 6-1 advantage. Great Britain would get a runback in the seventh, but that didn’t matter. The Americans held the lead so tightly that it counted.
2. American pitchers weather an early storm
Longtime St. Louis Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright received the nod in Saturday’s game. Unfortunately he wrestled early. Britain’s second batter of the night, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Trayce Thompson, hit a solo home run to put them 1-0 up in the early stages:
Wainwright was far from perfect after that, but he ended his night after conceding just that one four-inning run. He delivered five hits and a walk and hit just four batters on 49 pitches. Still, Cardinals fans in particular have cause for concern — his fastball averaged 85 mph, or three full ticks below his average from last season.
The rest of the US pitching team had a better night overall. Tampa Bay Rays substitute Jason Adam threw a perfect frame and Colorado Rockies left-hander Kyle Freeland held Britain through two innings on a run that the Pirates’ David Bednar ended.
3. What’s next
The Americans will face Mexico again on Sunday night at 10:00 p.m. San Diego Padres right-hander Nick Martinez is called up for Team USA. It’s too early to use a phrase like “win must,” but Mexico could use the win after losing to Colombia in an extra-innings tilt on Saturday.