Mario Chiarini of Italy slides in to score a seventh-inning run against Canada yesterday at Chase Field in Phoenix. (GETTY IMAGES)
“We know what we have to do,” said Michael Saunders.
And that is?
“We have to play baseball. In a tournament, all you can do is win and take care of your business,” replied the Team Canada outfielder.
This was after Canada failed to take care of any business — except for making the team bus to Chase Field — Friday in their opener of the World Baseball Classic.
Italy laid an embarrassing 14-4 mercy-rule beating on Canada as plate ump Brian Knight stopped the fight on cuts with none out in the eighth.
But what now?
Canada plays Mexico on Saturday and Team USA on Sunday.
The WBC rules on tie-breaking are over a page long, but the key graph seems to be: Team Quality Balance, the sum of runs scored divided by the number of innings played on offence, minus the number of runs allowed, divided by the number of innings played on defence.
For purposes of determining TQB, only the scores from the games between the tied teams are to b
