Today, Tuesday 12 March the Dominican Republic will play Italy in the first game of the second round of the World Baseball Classic at 1pm at the Marlins Park in Miami, Florida. An evening game pits team USA against Puerto Rico at 8pm.
Manager Tony Pena has announced that Edinson Volquez will start for the Dominican team, and Italy has announced John Mariotti as their starting pitcher. Volquez is a veteran big league pitcher and he started the game against Venezuela but only got to go for one inning due to the 50-minute rain delay.
This is the second time that the Dominican team has gone into the second round of play in the World Classic. In their last appearance in 2009, the Dominicans were surprised by the Netherlands twice and did not make it to the second round. Now the team is pitching and batting well. The ERA of the pitchers is a very good 2.67 and the team batting average is .324.
There are 24 Major League All-Stars playing on the four teams that have advanced to Miami. Team USA features former MVPs Ryan Braun, Joe Mauer, and Jimmy Rollins, and adds R.A. Dickey as the reigning Cy Young Award winner. In addition to those four, other All-Stars include Heath Bell, Gio Gonzalez, Adam Jones, Craig Kimbrel, Brandon Phillips, Giancarlo Stanton, Shane Victorino, Ryan Vogelsong, David Wright and Ben Zobrist.
The Dominican Republic includes former MVP Miguel Tejada. The team has seven All-Stars, including Tejada, Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz, Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Fernando Rodney, and Edinson Volquez.
Puerto Rico features three All-Stars in Carlos Beltran, Yadier Molina, and Alex Rios.
Italy is led by Major League players including Chris Denorfia, Jason Grilli, Nick Punto, and Anthony Rizzo. The team also has eight Italian-born players, including the first Italian born-and-raised player in Major League history, Alex Liddi. Liddi is a product of the MLB International European Academy.
http://web.worldbaseballclassic.com/index.jsp
http://web.worldbaseballclassic.com/wbc/2013/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2013_03_12_itaint_domint_1&mode=preview&c_id=mlb