World Baseball Classic: Highlights from Japan, Netherlands and More

The Kingdom of the Netherlands — emphasis on Kingdom — is thriving. Xander Bogaerts is from Aruba, Jurickson Profar is from Curaçao and Josh Palacios is from the United States, but they all qualified to play internationally for the Netherlands, and the team looked extremely stout in building a 2-0 record in group play over the first two days of the tournament. Ranked No. 7 in the world, the Netherlands also has plenty of players born in the country, including Didi Gregorius, the former Yankees shortstop, who was born in Amsterdam.

After the Netherlands, Group A is chaos. Italy, ranked No. 16 in the world and managed by the Hall of Famer Mike Piazza, pulled off an upset of No. 8-ranked Cuba in its first game, then took an early lead over No. 2-ranked Chinese-Taipei in its second game, but ultimately lost. As a result, the Netherlands leads Group A with a 2-0 record, while the other four teams each have exactly one win before the Panama-Italy game, which is scheduled to start at 11 p.m. Eastern on Friday (Saturday at noon in Taipei). Amusingly enough, the Netherlands, with seven runs over two games, is by far the lowest scoring team in its group.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/10/sports/baseball/world-baseball-classic.html