2009 World Baseball Classic
Date Local Time Road Team Score Home Team Inn Venue Game Time Attendance Boxscore
Mar 8 , 2009 12:00 South Africa 1-8 Cuba Foro Sol 2:37 11,270 Boxscore
Mar 8 , 2009 19:00 Australia 17-7 Mexico 8 Foro Sol 3:43 20,821 Boxscore
Mar 9 , 2009 20:00 Mexico 14-3 South Africa Foro Sol 3:33 10,311 Boxscore
Mar 10 , 2009 20:00 Cuba 5-4 Australia Foro Sol 3:29 13,396 Boxscore
Mar 11 , 2009 20:00 Mexico 16-1 Australia 6 Foro Sol 2:31 16,718 Boxscore
Mar 12 , 2009 19:00 Mexico 4-16 Cuba 7 Foro Sol 3:33 20,149 Boxscore
First round -- Pool B
Main article : 2009 World Baseball Classic – Pool B Preliminaries Qualifiers Seeding – South Africa 1 – Cuba 8 W1 Cuba 5 W2 Australia 4 – Australia 17 – Mexico 7 W4 Cuba 16 BW W5 Mexico 4 BR L1 South Africa 3 L2 Mexico 14 W3 Mexico 16 L4 Australia 1
The 2009 World Baseball Classic was an international baseball competition. It began on March 5 and finished March 23. Unlike in 2006, when the round-robin format of the first two rounds led to some eliminations being decided by run-difference tiebreakers, the first two rounds of the 2009 edition were modified double-elimination format. The modification was that the final game of each bracket was winner-take-all, even if won by the team emerging from the loser's bracket, although that game only affected seeding, as two teams always advanced from each bracket. The biggest surprise in the first round was the Netherlands, which twice defeated the Dominican Republic in Pool D to advance. The second round saw the two Pool A teams (South Korea and Japan) defeat the two Pool B teams (Cuba and Mexico) while the two Pool C teams (Venezuela and the United States) defeated the two Pool D teams (Puerto Rico and the Netherlands). South Korea and Japan then advanced to the final game, playing each other for the fifth time in the tournament (split 2-2 up to that time), and Japan emerged victorious for the second straight Classic, winning the final game 5-3 in 10 innings. For the second straight Classic, Daisuke Matsuzaka was named the Most Valuable Player of the tournament.