Israel’s surprise World Baseball Classic wins have Korea in trouble

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The 2017 World Baseball Classic isn’t Israel’s first, but it does mark their first entry into the main tournament. In 2013, Israel played in the qualifiers and failed to advance, but this time around, they not only qualified, but might have already punched their ticket to the second round of the main tournament. Israel won the opening contest of the WBC against the host of Pool A, Korea, defeating them 2-1 in extra innings. Israel then followed that up with a 15-7 rout of Chinese Tapei to give them two wins in the first round: if Israel defeats the Netherlands on Wednesday, they’ll be the top team out of Pool A and a guaranteed spot in Round 2 of the WBC. Even if they don’t defeat the Netherlands, the top two teams from each pool advance, and the top three from each pool automatically qualify for the 2021 WBC. Israel can already consider the 2017 tournament a major success.

This is bad news for Korea, who has been in every WBC thus far and, as mentioned, is hosting Pool A this year. Korea not only lost to Israel, but faced the Netherlands in their second game and were shut out 5-0. They’ve now played 19 innings of baseball, managed all of one run, and are in danger of not even qualifying for the 2021 World Baseball Classic — the team that finishes last in each pool is entered into the qualifying tournament that will take place in 2020. While Korea would stand a great chance of emerging from the qualifiers into the main tournament, it’s not a hoop they’re expecting to have to jump through, ever.

Korea’s fate is now tied to the performance of everyone else in Pool A. If they’re to advance to the second round, they need the Netherlands to lose to both Israel and Chinese Tapei, but they also need to defeat Chinese Tapei in their own matchup to keep from being at the bottom of the pool. They also need to start scoring, as run differential can come into play in the case of a tie. The Netherlands dropping both of their remaining games is difficult to fathom, but hey, Korea wasn’t supposed to start 0-2, either.