That was close! Canada narrowly averted what would have been a difficult loss to the surprisingly effective South African team in its opening game of the inaugural World Baseball Classic on Tuesday. Team Canada was sloppy on the field, and Paul Quantrill turned out a disappointing performance in relief, but Canada rallied for four runs in the ninth to win the game.

On a more encouraging note, Canada's men in the middle of the lineup showed their strengths: Jason Bay and Justin Morneau got the four-run seventh started with with back-to-back doubles, Corey Koskie hit a towering home run to right field, and Matt Stairs went 1-for-3 with two RBIs.

For more about this game, see: Canada given scare in WBC opener (CBC.ca) and Canada escapes South African rallies (MLB.com).

Canada will play Team USA at 4pm ET today. 

This post was added on Wednesday, March 8th, 2006 at 9:44 am and is filed under WBC . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.