Coming up at the World Baseball Classic
Group A play concluded with Italy’s upset of Netherlands, creating the aforementioned five-way tie and sending everybody to their calculators to anoint Cuba and Italy.
In Group B, Japan finished with a perfect 4-0 record, but the identity of the second team advancing out of Tokyo won’t be known until Australia and the Czech Republic play Sunday night U.S. time.
If Australia wins, they advance to meet Cuba, with Japan already slated against Italy. But if the Czechs win, it would create a three-way tiebreaker, with Korea being the third team. The issue would again boil down to the best ratio of runs allowed to outs recorded. Pending the results of those final two games, that math favors Australia, but not by a decisive margin.
Otherwise, action Sunday shifts largely to the two North America group sites: Phoenix and Miami.
Israel, a cult favorite from the 2017 WBC, will debut in Group D play in Miami against Nicaragua. While the Dominicans try to recover from their loss to Venezuela, the two group favorites (Venezuela and Puerto Rico) will meet with the winner gaining a big advantage.
In Phoenix, the U.S. team will play Mexico and Great Britain will take on Canada in a battle of Group C underdogs.
You can check out the entire schedule here.