Card Of The Week November 17

The 2019 Premier 12 drew to a close today with a pair of pretty good ballgames.  The early game today (noon start in Tokyo) was the Bronze Medal game between Mexico and the USA.  Besides the Medal, the winning team was also going to clinch a spot in next summer's Olympics.  The US got out to an early lead on a solo home run from Jordan Adell.  Mexico tied the game in the bottom of the sixth on an RBI single by former Dragon and Buffalo Matt Clark but the US immediately got the lead back in the top of the seventh on a Robert Dalbec RBI single.  Team USA took a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the ninth and were three outs away from victory but Clark led off the inning with a home run off his one-time Orix teammate Brandon Dickson.  Mexico ended up winning the game 3-2 in the bottom of the tenth on a walk-off bloop single from Efren Navarro of the Hanshin Tigers.

The night cap was a little less suspenseful although it wasn't immediately obvious it was going to be that way.  Korea had a 2-0 lead after the first two batters after a walk and a two run home run from Ha-Seong Kim and before the first inning was over they extended the lead to 3-0 on a solo home run from Hyun-Soo Kim.  But that ended up being all the runs Korea got all night.  Japan picked up a run on a Seiya Suzuki RBI single in the bottom of the first and then took the lead for good on a three run home run from Tetsuto Yamada in the second inning.  An RBI single by Hideto Asamura made it 5-3 in the seventh inning and that was the final score.  Korea could take some solace in the fact that despite the loss they also qualified for next summer's Olympics.

This was the first "high level" international tournament win by Japan since the 2009 World Baseball Classic and they were able to avenge their semi-final loss to Korea in the 2015 Premier 12, a game in which they blew a 3-0 lead going into the ninth inning and lost 4-3.

Seiya Suzuki was named MVP of the tournament but since I featured him in last week's Card Of The Week post I thought I'd share cards of the two big heroes of the Bronze Medal game for Mexico as well as Tetsuto Yamada:

2013 BBM 1st Version #044

2019 Epoch NPB #421

2017 Topps Now WBC #W-35