World Baseball Classic scores: Great Britain’s historic win helps USA; Australia makes WBC quarters

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

Great Britain stuns Colombia

Great Britain has its first ever World Baseball Classic win. The Brits upset Colombia on Monday afternoon thanks largely to 20-year-old outfielder Jaden Rudd. The Blue Jays minor leaguer doubled in two runs in the fifth inning to give Great Britain its first lead of the game. Colombia took an early 3-0 lead and Great Britain stormed all the way back.

Right-hander Ian Gibaut, who to this point was best known for throwing at Fernando Tatis Jr. after he hit in a grand slam in a 3-0 count in 2020, recorded the final three outs for Great Britain. It is a landmark win for a country with a nascent baseball program.

The win is Great Britain’s first ever in the WBC — they earned a spot in the tournament in a qualifying event last fall — and it also is a massive help to USA. Colombia’s loss means USA controls its own destiny despite getting blown out by Mexico on Sunday. Beat Canada on Monday and Colombia on Wednesday (Tuesday is an off-day), and the Americans advance to the second round. It’s quite simple. Now, if USA loses to Canada on Monday, then things get a lot more complicated.

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. 

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