U.S. Olympic baseball beats Japan, 4-2
OLYMPIC BASEBALL
Team USA advances to the medal round and will play Cuba on Friday.
BEIJING -- A run-scoring single by Brian Barden snapped a scoreless tie in the 11th inning Wednesday and sparked a four-run U.S. rally that carried the Americans to a 4-2 win over Japan in the final game of pool play in the Olympic baseball tournament.
Nate Schierholtz and Matt Brown followed with RBI singles, and John Gall drove in another run with a groundout.
With the win, the U.S. (5-2) goes to the medal round as the No. 3-seeded and will meet No. 2 Cuba (6-1) in the semifinals Friday night; Japan (4-3) will play unbeaten Korea in the morning semifinal.
With nothing more than seeding for the semifinals at stake both teams played Wednesday's game with an eye toward the medal round, with Japan pulling ace Yu Darvish after two perfect innings -- in which he struck out three -- and the U.S. removing its starter, Trevor Cahill, after three hitless innings.
But both bullpens were sterling with five U.S. pitchers combining to shut out Japan on three hits through 10 innings, with Jeff Stevens (1-2) getting the win. Japan's four pitchers allowed just two hits until the 11th.
Offensively both teams looked as though they were focusing on something else too, with neither mounting any serious threats until the 11th inning, which, until new Olympic tiebreaker rules, starts with runners on first and second.
Outfielder Dexter Fowler, who singled in the third and sixth innings, giving him hits in five straight at-bats, was the only U.S. player to reach base through eight innings, and Japan's only baserunner through four innings was leadoff hitter Tsuyoshi Nishioka, who walked to start the first and then was promptly picked off.
Japan's first hit came in the fifth when Takahiro Arai singled off Jeremy Cummings, the second U.S. pitcher, to start the inning. But after moving to second on a hit-and-run groundout and to third on a line-drive out to right, he was stranded there when Shuichi Murata flew out to end the inning.
Japan also stranded runners at second in the sixth and seventh innings before scoring twice in the 11th on a pair two-out hits off Casey Weathers, who then saw the tying runs advance into scoring position on passed ball.
But after walking the next batter to load the bases, Weathers got pinch-hitter Shinnosuke Abe to foul out to third to end it.
The only time the U.S. got a runner into scoring position before the tiebreaker was in the ninth, when walks to Barden and Brown put two men on. But Terry Tiffee, who entered the day leading the tournament in hitting, grounded out to end the inning.
After losing two of its first three games, both in their opponent's final at-bat, the U.S. has won four straight.
kevin.baxter@latimes.com
