World Baseball Classic: Panama 2, Italy 0
Four pitchers came up big against upstart Italy in a game played in Taichung that Panama absolutely, positively had to have.
They limited the Italians to just five base hits, enabling Jose Ramos’ second-inning home run to stand up as the winning margin. An outfielder in the Dodgers system, Ramos also scored Panama’s insurance run in the seventh when Allen Cordoba singled him home.
Even so, it took a display of ninth inning defense to salt the victory away. Dominic Fletcher started the last of that ninth by drawing a base on balls off Panamanian closer Javy Guerra, and Brett Sullivan followed by slipping a base hit off the glove of shortstop Ruben Tejada into center field. That sent Fletcher to third with nobody out.
Then Guerra, who will pitch this season for the Milwaukee Brewers, struck out John Valente and coerced a comebacker off the bat of Nicky Lopez that he turned into a game-ending double play. Lopez was initially called safe at first, but that call was overturned on appeal.
Panama concludes pool play at 2-2 and now waits to see whether the intricate WBC tie-breaking system will make that good enough to advance out of Group play. Their fate will be decided by the outcomes of games Saturday between Netherlands and Italy and between Chinese Taipei and Cuba.
Panama needs a loss by either Chinese Taipei or Netherlands to retain hope. Pending the outcomes of those two games, all five of the Group A teams remain technically eligible to land one of the two tickets to the next round.