Premature dancing, pickoffs and bat flips: The first inning of Netherlands-Puerto Rico had it all
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Monday's World Baseball Classic matchup between the Netherlands and Puerto Rico pitted two loaded clubs against each other at Dodger Stadium, with the winner set to face either the U.S. or Japan in Wednesday's championship game (9 p.m. ET on MLB Network/MLB.TV).
Anybody who's seen some of the recent World Baseball Classic games knows there's definitely a lot of emotion on the field, and Monday's game was no exception -- right from the get-go, too.
After his one-out single in the first inning advanced Xander Bogaerts to third base, Jurickson Profar was pretty pumped up, and exhibited that excitement to his teammates in the Netherlands' dugout. Too bad for him, though, his foot wasn't on the first-base bag and a super-aware Yadier Molina noticed (after a great deke):
Naturally, Yadi enjoyed the moment:
A rally-killing moment for sure, right? Well, not with the mighty bat (and subsequent exclamatory bat flip) of Wladimir Balentien, who came up next and staked the Netherlands to a 2-0 lead:
After the highs and lows of that top of the first inning, what was next? Well, with a runner on second in the bottom of the frame, the always-up-for-something-spectacularCarlos Correa tied the game at 2-2 with this blast:
That's a rather eventful first inning in a do-or-die game, isn't it?
By the time the dust had settled on the evening, Correa and Puerto Rico prevailed, 4-3, in 11 innings, to advance to the championship game on Wednesday night (9 p.m. ET on MLB Network/MLB.TV).