Team USA Moves On, Atlanta Braves Prospect Trolls Teammate
By Jeff Schafer
USA defeats Canada to Move to Second Round of the World Baseball Classic
Team USA takes down our friendly northern team on Sunday evening, winning in fashionable style 8-0. USA scored seven runs in the first two innings to provide starting pitcher Danny Duffy plenty of insurance as he stepped onto the mound. Duffy went four innings, gave up two hits and had seven strikeouts on the day.
Canada started former MLB pitcher (and almost Atlanta Brave) Ryan Dempster (haha, my autocorrect tried to change his last name to Dumpster), but he was only able to record one out because of the three runs, two hits and three walks Team USA did to him.
Both Canada and USA went into the game needing to win to stay alive in the WBC. If Canada won, the two would play a rubber match.
USA won their first game of the WBC beating Colombia in extra innings 3-2. They lost to the Dominican Republic after blowing a five run lead, 7-5.
Canada lost their two previous games to Colombia and the DR.
Atlanta Braves’ Freddie Freeman was finally able to honor his mom and dad by playing for Team Canada this year. If you haven’t seen the feature on this story and why he was able to play for Canada, it’s a must watch. In his three games, Freddie went 2-11 at the plate with three strikeouts and one RBI. Not the best performance, but the entire team struggled at the plate. Freeman will now return to Orlando to join his Braves teammates!
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With a lot of eyeballs on these games, you can’t help but brag a little when your team wins, right? Braves top pitching prospect (MLB.com’s #4 overall) may have trolled our other top pitching prospect (MLB.com’s #5 overall) following the game.
LHP Kolby Allard dropped a quick screen grab of a Bleacher Report update on his phone to Braves RHP Mike Soroka on twitter. This made he laugh a little…still haven’t heard from Soroka yet, but I’m sure he’s okay.
Allard is from California while Soroka is from Calgary, Canada.
The 19-year-olds were both drafted in the 1st round of the 2015 MLB draft by the Atlanta Braves — Allard as the 14th pick and Soroka as the 28th pick. The two are good friends and both were a major part of the Rome Braves Championship season in 2016.
Allard pitched for USA in the 2014 COPABE 18U Pan American games and Soroka pitched for Canada’s junior national team.
Just your typical trash talking and I love it!
Next: Braves Best and Worst Trades of our Rebuild
USA moves on and will play the runner-up of Pool D which is between Venezuela, Italy and Mexico. The game will be Wednesday at Petco Park in San Diego. USA’s manager Jim Leyland told reporters there’s a “good chance” their starting pitcher will be Drew Smyly.
Seven teams have already advanced in the 2017 WBC – Israel, Japan, Netherlands, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and the United States.