Canada's Olympic Baseball Dream: Game 5, vs Japan

Thursday, August 19 2004 @ 10:59 AM EDT

Contributed by: robertdudek

Canada has shown themselves superior to the opposition to this point. Now they face one of the co-favourites for gold. Game time is 4:30 AM Eastern on TSN.

Mike Johnson will take the mound after the off-day. Canada is the sole undefeated team in the tournament, after their 2-0 win over Greece and Japan's loss to the Aussies.

"Greek" lefty Mel Melehes (a Canadian who pitches for Guelph in the ICL) shut down Canada's lefty-dominated lineup, with the exception of Pete Orr. Orr led off the first inning with a double and scored on a one-out error. He also drove a two-out triple to the rightcentrefield gap to score Adam Stern from first for an important insurance run in the 7th. Orr also had his typical solid game in the field at third base.

The Greeks weren't able to mount a serious offensive challenge all game. Paul Spoljaric's command was off to start, but he settled in and put up 5 scoreless innings plus one out in the 6th before the bullpen took over. TSN/CP has the game story.

Here is Stephen Brunt's take on Canada's baseball journey so far.

Baseball America's recap of Day 4 provides details of the other games.


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