USA poised to advance in WBC thanks to Italy-Mexico tiebreaker

The United States is on the verge of advancing to the World Baseball Classic quarterfinals thanks to Italy's offensive performance against Mexico.

HOUSTON — That cheering you heard throughout the state of Texas was from Team USA’s hotel Wednesday night.

Team USA, by simply sitting around and cheering from the comforts of its posh hotel, is on the verge of advancing to the World Baseball Classic quarterfinals. The moment it became (near) reality was when Italy scored its fifth run in the fifth inning against Team Mexico, taking a 5-0 lead.

It all but clinched USA’s quarterfinal berth because of the WBC tiebreakers — no matter whether Italy goes on to win or lose the game. The first tiebreaker is runs allowed divided by outs, and even if Mexico comes back to win the game, it would require scoring six runs, which would then give the USA the tiebreaker over Italy. (Things could change if we get extra innings — many extra innings.)

Certainly, it allowed Team USA manager Mark DeRosa to exhale after he was ridiculed for mistakenly believing that the USA had clinched a quarterfinal berth Monday after beating Mexico, 5-3. He said that he misspoke when he was on MLB Network and erroneously said that the USA had already punched its ticket to the quarterfinals.

He was corrected when he arrived to Daikin Park, saying it didn’t affect his lineup or his in-game strategy, which was magnified with the USA’s 8-6 loss to Italy.