WBC scores: Australia advances to World Baseball Classic quarters; Mexico nearly forces mercy rule vs. USA

The 2023 World Baseball Classic is fully underway and predictably action-packed. The first round features four five-team pools and each team plays every other team in its pool once. The teams with the two best records in each pool advance to the quarterfinals. From there, it’s essentially a single-elimination eight-team tournament. Here is the full WBC schedule and here is everything you need to know about this year’s event.

Here are our takeaways from USA’s loss against Mexico on Sunday night, and here’s everything you need to know about the rest of Sunday’s and early Monday morning’s WBC action.

Recent scores

Advanced to quarterfinals

Relegated

Australia advances

Australia became the fourth team to advance to the quarterfinal round overnight Sunday, defeating Czech Republic by an 8-3 score. Australia will now play Cuba in the next round, with the winner advancing to the semifinals. 

The Australians jumped ahead early, with Alex Hall delivering a solo home run with one out in the top of the first. Czech Republic tied the game on an Eric Sogard RBI single in the third, and the two sides would remain even until the seventh. That’s when Australia started to pull away on extra-base hits from Logan Wade and the aforementioned Hall that helped build a 6-1 lead. 

Czech Republic did get two back in the bottom of the eighth, making it a 6-3 contest, but Australia tacked on another two in the top of the ninth, giving them what proved to be an insurmountable 8-3 margin.

Pool B play is now complete. Japan won the pool with a 4-0 showing; Australia finished as the runner-up with a 3-1 mark; and Korea (2-2) and Czech Republic (1-3) both avoided relegation. That leaves one team, China, back on the qualifying circuit ahead of the 2026 WBC. More on them later.

Team USA loses to Mexico

We highlighted Team USA’s loss to Mexico on Sunday night in the introduction, but a lot of people tend to skip the introduction so we’ll bring it up again now. (Do note that you can read our full takeaways from Sunday night’s game by clicking here.)

The Americans fell behind early, with Mexico building a 7-1 lead through four innings. Another offensive outburst in the eighth saw Mexico take an 11-2 edge that left them just one run shy of triggering the mercy rule. (Said rule is prompted either by a lead of 15 runs or more through five, and 10 runs or more through seven.) Team USA would get…