Baseball semifinals lock in

(BEIJING, August 20) -- The United States defeated Japan 4-2 at Wukesong Baseball Field on Wednesday, August 20 and will now meet arch rivals Cuba in the Olympic tournament semifinals. Japan will take on the Republic of Korea in the other semifinal.

With Japan and the US team guaranteed a top-four spot before the game, managers Hoshino Senichi and Davey Johnson opted to rotate their pitchers in preparation for Friday's semifinals.

The pitchers did their jobs well as the teams remained scoreless and managed only two hits each until the game was kick started by the extra-innings rule.

With runners placed on first and second base in the top of the 11th, the United States knocked in four runs on singles to Brian Barden, Nate Schierholtz and Matt Brown, and an RBI groundout from John Gall.

Japan responded gamely in the bottom of the 11th with singles from Inaba Atsunori and Nakajima Hiroyuki but Casey Weathers struck out pinch hitter Abe Shinnosuke with the bases loaded to leave the final score at 4-2.

Ten pitchers turned out in the fine-tuning exercise - Trevor Cahill, Jeremy Cummings, Brian Duensing, Blaine Neal, Jeff Stevens and Weathers for the United States, with Yu Darvish starting for Japan before giving way to Tanaka Masahiro, Kawakami Kenshin and Iwase Hitoke.

Center fielder Dexter Fowler continued his surge into hitting form by collecting both United States hits before the 11th-inning action.

In a possible first for Olympic baseball, shouts from the tribune and dugouts were needed to alert home-plate umpire Daniel Toledo Rodriguez (Mexico) there were already three out for the United States in the top of the sixth, with Brown in the batting box representing a possible fourth.

Team USA's game against Cuba will start at 6:00 p.m. while Japan will face the Republic of Korea at 10:30 a.m. (UTC/GMT +8), with the winners playing off for gold on August 23 as the losers fight over the bronze. Thursday is a rest day in the Baseball competition.