TAINAN, Taiwan – The unbeaten 12U National Team will wrap up World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) U-12 Baseball World Cup pool play action on Tuesday afternoon against Korea. First pitch is set for 2:30 p.m. local/2:30 a.m. ET at Asia-Pacific Main Stadium in Tainan, Taiwan.
The contest will be streamed live on Gametime OTT (login required) and live stats will be provided here.
The U.S. enters Tuesday’s contest as the only unbeaten team in Group B after winning its first three contests. The stars and stripes topped the Czech Republic in Friday’s opener, 24-0, before beating Japan (21-6) on Saturday and the Dominican Republic (10-0) on Sunday.
The Team USA offense has been paced by Anthony Frausto and Jonah Saken, who are both posting a .750 (6-for-8) batting average for the tournament. Saken started the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup with five hits in his first five at-bats, and Frausto has picked up two hits in each contest.
The U.S. offense has hit a tournament-best 12 homers in its first three games. Jordan Leon and Cristian Matos are tied for the team lead with two, as Leon hit a pair in Friday’s 14-run first inning against the Czech Republic and Matos homered on Friday and on Sunday.
Team USA’s pitching staff owns a 2.00 ERA in 15 innings so far in the tournament. Levi Kerr was the latest member of the stars and stripes to dominate on the mound, as he turned in five shutout frames in Sunday’s win over the Dominican Republic.
Tuesday’s game will mark the fourth all-time matchup between the U.S. and Korea at the U-12 level. The United States have won all three contests so far, with the most recent game coming in 2019, where the U.S. picked up a 12-11 victory.
Korea is 2-1 in the tournament, with wins against the Czech Republic and Japan.
The U.S., which owns a world-best three world titles at the U-12 level, won all three of its championships in three consecutive events (2013, 2015, 2017). Team USA went 6-2 in the tournament in 2019 but did not earn a medal for the only time in program history.
The 2022 U.S. roster comprises players who were selected from two USA Baseball identification events. Fourteen players on the roster participated in the 2022 Futures Invitational in June and four athletes played in the 2021 National Team Identification Series (NTIS) Champions Cup last summer. In addition, the roster comprises players from nine different states. California leads all states with six representatives, while Texas follows with five players.
The stars and stripes are led by skipper RJ Farrell in 2022, who returns to the post for the second consecutive season. Farrell led the U.S. to an unbeaten record in a three-game exhibition slate in 2021, outscoring opponents 55-3. The manager has a plethora of experience on 12U National Team coaching staffs, spending three seasons as an assistant coach. In that role, he helped lead Team USA to gold medals at the 2017 WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup and the 2018 COPABE U-12 Pan American Championships.
Farrell is joined on staff by pitching coach Seth Kenny and assistant coaches Troy Gerlach and Tanner Vesely. Kenny will reprise his role as pitching coach in 2022 after making his national team coaching debut a summer ago, when his pitching staff posted a 1.29 ERA and struck out 33 batters in 21 innings pitched. Gerlach assumes the role of assistant coach on the 2022 staff, bringing with him a gold medal from the 2018 WBSC U-15 Baseball World Cup, where he was an assistant coach. Also serving as an assistant is four-time gold medalist Vesely for the second consecutive year. Vesely, who has been a member of six national team staffs, won the 2015 WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup as manager and has been an assistant on three other gold-medal winning squads.
The U.S. is in Group B – which includes Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Japan, and Korea – for the pool play portion of the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup. Three nations from the group will emerge to the Super Round, where they will be joined by the three advancing teams from Group A (Chinese Taipei, Italy, Mexico, Panama, South Africa, and Venezuela).
To follow along with all the action at the WBSC U-12 Baseball World Cup, be sure to follow @USABaseball12U on Twitter and @USABaseball on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.
