Wood homers twice as Canada falls in exhibition finale
Photo: Amanda Fewer
TAMPA - It’s all for keeps now as Canada concluded exhibition play today falling to the New York Yankees, 10-4, on the eve of facing the Dominican Republic to open Pool C play at the World Baseball Classic in Miami.
Eric Wood (Oshawa, ON) hit a pair of home runs, a deep shot to straight-away centre off the batter’s eye in the sixth followed by a solo shot to right-centre in the eighth to account for two of Canada’s runs.
Canada had opened the scoring in the top of the first as Tyler O’Neill (Maple Ridge, BC) launched a two-run homer over the right field wall, but the Yankees took over from there scoring two in the bottom half of the first before adding four in the fourth.
Starter Scott Richmond (Vancouver, BC) gave up a two-run homer to Matt Holliday with two out in the first before the Yankees added four runs in the third. Gary Sanchez and Aaron Hicks both went deep off Canadian reliever Shane Dawson (Drayton Valley, AB) as the Yanks stung him for four earned runs off of three hits and walk.
The Yankees added three runs in the sixth before scoring one in the eighth and hit four home runs on the afternoon.
Tomorrow’s WBC opener will see Gibsons, BC native Ryan Dempster start on the mound for Canada with the first pitch set for 6:08pm ET…The game can be seen live in Canada on Sportsnet ONE.