Team USA rallied from an early two-run deficit on the strength of Zack Segovia's pitching and Brandon Wood's timely hitting and surged past Nicaragua, 5-2, on Saturday night at the 2006 Americas Olympic Qualifying Tournament in San Jose, Cuba.
The victory left the United States one win from clinching a spot in the baseball competition at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The United States failed to qualify for the 2004 Summer Games in Athens after winning the gold medal under manager Tommy Lasorda in 2000 in Sydney.
Segovia, a pitcher in the Philadelphia Phillies system, settled down after allowing a run in each of the first two innings. He retired 12 consecutive batters until Henry Roa singled in the sixth.
The 23-year-old right-hander escaped further trouble and left the game, trailing, 2-1.
Wood, one of baseball's top positional prospects, made Segovia a winner by blasting a 1-0 pitch from starter Franklyn Sanchez over the left-field fence for a three-run homer. It followed a walk to Billy Butler and a single by Jarrod Saltalamacchia.
Team USA never looked back as Wood broke out of a tournament-long 2-for-25 slump.
J. Brent Cox replaced Segovia in the seventh and tossed a pair of scoreless innings before giving way to Henry Owens, who pitched the ninth for his second save of the tournament.
Wood got Team USA on the board in the third when he drew a leadoff walk and came around on Skip Schumaker's RBI single. Catcher Kurt Suzuki iced the victory when he singled home Bryan LaHair with two outs in the eighth.
Team USA will play Panama on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET at Nelson Fernandez Stadium.
Panama has lost consecutive games to Canada and Venezuela in the second round after posting a 4-1 mark in pool play. The Panamanians' only loss in pool play was to Cuba, when they squandered a three-run lead and fell, 7-6.
NOTES: Mike Kinkade was the lone U.S. starter without a hit. ... Michael Bourn stole a base, just the second by Team USA in the tournament. He was 45-for-50 in stolen base attempts between Double-A Reading and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this season. ... Saturday was the first tournament game in which Schumaker did not score a run. ... Team USA has drawn 48 walks. ... American pitchers have a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 54-15. ... Cuba (7-0) remains the lone unbeaten team after defeating Canada, 9-0,
on Saturday. ... Cuban pitchers have a combined ERA under 1.50 heading into Sunday's matchup with Mexico (6-1). ... Cuban hurler Adiel Palma Lopez has 23 strikeouts in 12 2/3 innings.
LOS ANGELES -- Among the multiple subplots from the Dodgers' 14-5 blowout of the Colorado Rockies on Saturday night was what took place among the first basemen, as slumping Nomar Garciaparra homered and drove in six runs, then turned the position over to rookie James Loney, who hit his first Major League home run.
It's a little early to worry about which one -- if either -- will be the Dodgers' first baseman of the future, as Garciaparra is about to be a free agent and Loney is fresh off rumors that he was prominent in fruitless talks with Boston for David Wells.
For now, they are locker neighbors on a team solidly four games in front in the National League West, riding a seven-game win streak, and 11 games above .500 for the first time since 2004.
There was more to this game, however, than the first basemen:
‧ Brad Penny became the National League leader in victories with a career-high 15, although he hit the wall in a five-run sixth inning that was extended by a Jeff Kent throwing error and a missed call on a force play at second base. Penny is 5-0 against Colorado this year and 10-2 lifetime.
‧ J.D. Drew homered, scored three runs and drove in two, while Rafael Furcal continued to be an offensive catalyst with two hits, two runs and an RBI.
‧ The middle of the bullpen took over for Penny and put down the Rockies over a scoreless final 3 2/3 innings. First, it was Elmer Dessens and Joe Beimel, then left-handers Mark Hendrickson and Hong-Chih Kuo.
The lefties retired three batters each. For Hendrickson, who is still scheduled to start Tuesday night in Milwaukee, his first relief appearance in four years was a chance to combine his between-starts throwing with providing a rest to the regular relievers.
"The results were good, and it was a little different adrenaline level than a normal side session," said Hendrickson.
Kuo, a candidate to replace Hendrickson in the rotation, struck out the side with the kind of overpowering stuff that has made him one of the most intriguing prospects in the system over his last six injury-plagued seasons.
The postgame focus, however, was on Garciaparra, after he slugged a three-run homer off Aaron Cook in a five-run third inning that helped provide Penny with a 7-0 lead. And after the Rockies chased Penny with a five-run sixth inning to cut the Dodgers' lead to 7-5, Garciaparra's three-run double in a six-run sixth again showed the Rockies who's boss in this matchup.
"We hit the ball tonight," said Penny. "They got me a seven-run lead quick, I let them back in and we built the lead back."
Garciaparra was in the middle of it, a welcome sight to a Dodgers offense that has missed his bat for much of the second half. Although the common assumption is that Garciaparra's offense has been hampered by a sprained knee suffered last month that never healed, in truth, his average started to slip as soon as the second half began and two weeks before the injury occurred.
Most recently 6-for-40 (.150), he spent an hour working with batting coach Eddie Murray before Saturday night's game, making a mechanical adjustment with the positioning of his hands as he awaits the pitch and starts his swing. Instead of back by his right shoulder, he moved his hands about four inches forward, shortening the swing and the time it takes to get the bat into the hitting zone. The six RBIs were the most he's had since he drove in eight four years ago.
"It's a subtle adjustment," Garciaparra said. "My hands start in a different position to get where I wanted to be."
In typical fashion, Garciaparra said his favorite at-bat was his first one in the second inning, following Kent's leadoff double, when he bounced a grounder to the right side that second baseman Kaz Matsui booted for an error.
"I moved the guy over and did the job," he said. "That's important to me."
For Loney, the home run is important because, for all of the attention he's received this year en route to a Triple-A batting title, the one part of his game that remains uncertain is his power at a power position. He knows the Dodgers must soon make a decision on his future.
"It's a good thing for me to make them make a decision," said Loney, who drove a Manny Corpus slider over the center-field fence. "If I make it tough on them, we'll both play someplace in the Major Leagues. I have to show them and show myself that I can do it. I have confidence I can. I've got to. If I'm out there, I might as well."
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