South Africa 001 000 000 1 6 1 Australia 300 001 00X 4 7 1
Australia is one win away from returning to the main tournament at the World Baseball Classic. On Friday evening they defeated South Africa 4-1 in the meeting of day-one winners at the WBC Qualifier at Blacktown Sports Park in Sydney. Three runs in the first gave them an early advantage, which they kept until the end. They’ll now wait for their finals opponent. South Africa will get a second shot at the final on Saturday against Friday’s afternoon winner New Zealand.
The Aussie offense gave their pitchers a nice cushion from the start. A RBI double by Logan Wade, a RBI single by Stefan Welch and a sac fly by Trent Oeltjen basically decided the outcome early. After Kyle Botha got South Africa on the board with a RBI single in the third, a RBI groundout by James Beresford in the sixth got Australia the three-run lead back.
Pitchers Warwick Saupold, Ryan Rowland-Smith, Todd van Stensel and Ryan Searle combined to keep South Africa to one run on six hits and a walk, while striking out 11. After the rocky first, South Africa was up to par on the pitching side, but failed to produce much on the offensive part. Carl Michaels got charged with the loss.