World Baseball Classic: Daisuke Matsuzaka reverted back to the Dice-K of the Boston Red Sox last night for Japan but ended up being effective enough to help them to a 9-4 win over Team USA in the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic. Japan will now take on South Korea in the finals of the WBC tonight at 9 PM on ESPN. Dice-K went 4 2/3 innings, allowing 2 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks while striking out 4 on 97 pitches to raise his record to 3-0 with a 1.69 ERA in the WBC. Hiroyuki Nakajima had 2 RBIs as did Kenji Johjima from the Seattle Mariners. Jimmy Rollins of the Philadelphia Phillies had 4 hits for Team USA and Brian Roberts from the Baltimore Orioles led off the game with a home run off of Dice-K. [MLB.com]
