Olympic Baseball 2021: USA Defeats Dominican Republic to Advance to Semifinals

Team USA baseball kept its hopes of winning a gold medal alive at the Tokyo Olympics with a victory over the Dominican Republic on Wednesday at Yokohama Stadium.

In the day's second game, the host nation of Japan became the first team to punch its ticket to the championship game with a win over South Korea in the winners' bracket.

The U.S. will play South Korea on Thursday with the second berth in the final on the line.

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Wednesday's Baseball Results

United States 3, Dominican Republic 1

Japan 5, South Korea 2

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Recap

Team USA seized a 2-0 lead in the first inning courtesy of a two-run home run by Boston Red Sox prospect Triston Casas. It was his third long ball of the tournament to help pace the U.S. offense in Tokyo.

"At the end of the tournament, nobody's going to remember really how many home runs I hit or how many runs I drive in. It's just whether we came home with that gold," Casas told reporters.

Tyler Austin, who's playing for the Yokohama DeNA BayStars in Japan after four MLB seasons, added a homer in the fifth to push the Americans' lead to 3-0.

The pitching staff took care of the rest. Longtime MLB starter Scott Kazmir, who was sent to the minors by the San Francisco Giants in June after a brief stint with the big league club, pitched five shutout innings with five strikeouts.

"He fell under a rock. I think he got designated for assignment at the right time when we were about ready to make some decisions in putting our club together," manager Mike Scioscia said. "There's no doubt he can pitch in the major leagues and be very effective, and I'm sure that's going to happen at some point."

Brandon Dickson, Scott McGough and Anthony Gose added scoreless frames of relief. Closer David Robertson allowed a solo shot to Charlie Valerio but then managed to extinguish the Dominican Republic's rally to secure the save.

The loss dropped the Dominican Republic into the bronze-medal game.

Meanwhile, Japan entered the semifinals undefeated in the tournament and jumped out to an early lead once again on a third-inning sacrifice fly by Hayato Sakamoto. Masataka Yoshida added an RBI single in the fifth.

South Korea tied the game in the sixth with a pair of run-scoring singles by Kang Baek-ho and Kim Hyun-soo.

Japan came through in the clutch in the bottom of the eighth to earn their place in the final. Tetsuto Yamada was the hero with a bases-loaded double to put the hosts back on top, 5-2. Ryoji Kuribayashi pitched a scoreless ninth for the save.

Looking ahead, the United States will battle South Korea at 7 p.m. local time Thursday (6 a.m. ET in the U.S.) for the chance to face Japan in the gold-medal game on Saturday.