Canada saw their World Baseball Classic playoff aspirations take a major hit on Wednesday after a 10-3 drubbing at the hands of Mexico.
Outfielder Randy Arozarena was a Canadian killer all day, driving in five of Mexico’s 10 runs including a bases-clearing double in the sixth inning.
Down 2-0 after the top of the first, Canada had a chance to break things wide open in the bottom of the first with the bases loaded, but only managed to score one run on an Otto Lopez single.
With the win over the Canadians, Mexico automatically books their spot in Miami for the WBC quarter-finals. They will go up against the winner of the Dominican Republic-Puerto Rico game on Friday.
Now, Canada will need a miracle if they hope to advance to the next round of the WBC for the very first time.
First, they will need Columbia to pull off the upset of the high-powered Americans Wednesday tonight. This would put Canada, Columbia and the United States all at 2-2. Since each of the teams went 1-1 against the other two, and finished 1-1 against the other two, we move on to the second tiebreaker, which is the lowest quotient of fewest runs allowed divided by the number of defensive outs recorded in the games in that round between the teams tied.
Canada suffered a 12-1, mercy-rule loss to the Americans and then shut out Colombia 5-0, allowing 12 runs while recording 45 outs. Colombia has allowed five runs with 27 outs heading into the finale while the United States, barring a double-digit slugfest Wednesday, is in the driver’s seat with one run against and 21 outs thus far.
And when you add in Canada’s 10-3 loss to Mexico on Wednesday, things begin to look very bleak.
Columbia and the United States square off in Arizona at 10 p.m. ET / 8 p.m. MT on Sportsnet.
