team usa Meneses was defeated by Mauler on Sunday night, as Washington Nationals slugger Joey Meneses crushed two homers and drove in five runs to put Mexico ahead 11–5. world baseball classic The win before a raucous sellout crowd of 47,534 at Chase Field.
Meneses, a 30-year-old journeyman who played 10 years in the minor leagues and 10 winter-ball seasons in Mexico before his breakout with the Nationals in the 2022 season, sent a 109-mph line drive into the left-field seats . San Diego Padres right-hander Nick Martinez struck out for a two-run homer in the first inning.
Meneses reached on an infield single and took a 3–1 lead in the third inning. The first baseman then scored on Randy Arozrena’s RBI double and Alex Verdugo Kansas City Royals right-hander Brady Singer followed with a three-run homer to left field in the fourth for a 7–1 lead.
Meneses, who hit .324 with a .930 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, 13 homers and 34 RBI in 56 games for Washington last season, punctuated his second shot with a rainmaker of a bat flip, making his The wood bounced about 20 feet. in the air in front of Mexico’s first-base dugout while his teammates—including Dodgers left-handers Julio Urias – went wild.
Urias and Meneses, who are both from Culiacan, have known each other since they were boys, but they have never played together as Meneses is four years older than Urias (26).
Meneses has performed for Los Tomateros de Culiacan at the Winter Ball for years. Urias said last year that he wanted to end his career with Los Tomateros.
Angels left-hander Patrick Sandoval threw three one-run, two-hit innings, and Chicago Cubs right-hander Javier Assad pitched three scoreless, one-hit innings to help Mexico improve to 1–1 in Pool C. Threw an innings. Team USA fell 1-1, making their path to the WBC quarterfinals in Miami a little more treacherous.
Canada and Colombia are both 1-0. The US can make it to Miami with wins over Canada on Monday night and Colombia on Wednesday night.
A fight between Angels teammates ended in a draw, with Sandoval striking out Team USA center fielder Mike Trout on a down-and-in slider in the first inning and Trout hitting a single to cap the nine-pitch at-bat. -Drawd a walk out. in the third.
Trout threw three full-count sliders down and inside in the third inning, before taking a fastball for ball four. Sandoval avoided further damage by hitting No. 3 hitter Paul Goldschmidt with a bad slider and grounding out to cleanup man Nolan Arenado at shortstop, maintaining a 3–1 lead.
Sandoval walked and scored two runs in his 55-pitch debut when Kyle Tucker laced a one-out triple into the right-field corner and scored on Tim Anderson’s single to right in the second.
Dodgers catchers Will Smith and Austin Barnes The inning also coincided with Barnes, playing for Mexico, stealing second base from Smith in the sixth inning. Smith hit a solo homer to left to cut Mexico’s lead to 7–2.
Mexico scored four more runs in the eighth on Colorado closer Daniel Bard’s RBI double off Arrozarena, Rowdy Tellez’s two-run single and Luis Urías’s RBI single, extending the lead to 11–2 and chasing Bard 33 pitches thrown in inning. ,
America scored three runs in the bottom of the eighth on Bobby Witt Jr.’s RBI double and Anderson’s two-run double, but Smith grounded out to deep center to end the inning with runners on second and third.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times,