Italy reaches semifinals, stays unbeaten in Classic with win over Puerto Rico

HOUSTON -- The afternoon start time at Daikin Park was conducive to a new, beautifully bizarre reality out in Italy. There, the locals could gather in the evening hours Saturday and converse not just about “calcio,” or soccer, while sipping on their espressos and digestivi but also lock in on the national baseball team that is winning over their affection and attention.

And despite some eighth-inning agita, the result ultimately went down smooth.

Team Italy poured on the runs early and managed to stave off a Puerto Rico rally late for an 8-6 quarterfinals triumph, reaching the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic for the first time. One could almost hear the salute coming from The Boot, where Italia’s rousing run has shockingly brought baseball to the fore.

“I heard that after the last out, the people there were screaming in Italian, and it was amazing,” said manager Francisco Cervelli. “I believe it was incredible.”

Cervelli moved to Italy last year and has opened an academy in Tuscany. He envisions a future in which the sport has a real grasp on young Italian athletes and more routinely produces Major League players.

This Team Italy roster is … not that.

Though Saturday’s starter, Sam Aldegheri of the Angels’ organization, was born and raised in Verona, he and relievers Gabriele Quattrini and Claudio Scotti are the only members of the team to actually hail from Italy. The team is made up primarily of players like third baseman Andrew Fischer, who has Frank Sinatra tattooed on his arm as part of a tribute to his native New Jersey and joked about all his friends back home being “guys with cut-off shirts and huge gold chains and everything else.”

Still, there’s real bonding and real bloodline pride taking place with this 5-0 team, which has been the darling of the WBC.

While the American-born members of the Azzurri are leaning into the clichés with their celebratory espressos, pinched fingers, blaring Bocelli, Armani home run jacket, pecks on the cheek and postgame wine bottles handed out to MVPs, they’re also experiencing and engendering some genuine emotions.

“I know there's a lot of people that are upset that we represent Italy, being Italian-American,” said team captain Vinnie Pasquantino, “but I take so much pride in it because it's my roots. My family came over for a better life to America, and I honestly don't have any issue representing those members of my family.

“It’s just super cool to be given this opportunity from these guys, to learn about your history and to be able to perform for people in a country that baseball doesn't exist at this level. We're trying to get it to exist at a level somewhat like this.”

There are a ton of people in the United States with Italian blood. But the crowds Team Italy encountered at Daikin Park for games against Team USA, Mexico and Puerto Rico were significantly weighted toward the opposition.

That was especially true Saturday afternoon, where a Puerto Rican-oriented audience made its voices and percussive instruments heard.

And when Willi Castro led off the game with a blast that traveled beyond the Crawford Boxes, Puerto Rico’s players poured out of the visiting dugout as a joyful noise bounced off Daikin’s steel-paneled roof.

“That was so loud in there,” Pasquantino said afterward.

Once again, though, there was no quieting these Italian bats.

Italy responded quickly and aggressively in the bottom of the first, with Pasquantino, Dominic Canzone and Jac Caglianone ripping successive RBI singles to knock Seth Lugo out of the game after recording only one out. A J.J. D’Orazio sacrifice fly completed the four-run inning, and it would not be Italy’s last.

Though Puerto Rico loaded the bases off Aldegheri in the second inning, all it could muster was an RBI hit by pitch for Martín Maldonado. And that put Italy in position to break the game open in the fourth.

Pasquantino drew a walk and recorded a rare stolen base (“Espresso make me run fast,” he joked) to spark a two-out rally. Italy loaded the bases against Luis Quiñones for Fischer, who, Sinatra tat and all, did it his way by launching a long fly ball to right that a fan reached out and caught in front of the wall. The interference left Fischer with a double that drove in a pair. And when D’Orazio immediately followed with a ground-rule double down the right-field line, another two runs came across to make it 8-2.

“Italy came and attacked first,” Puerto Rico skipper Yadier Molina said. “First half of the game, we couldn’t hold on with our pitching.”

Puerto Rico caused Italy agita in the eighth by loading the bases with none out against Matt Festa. Before the inning was over, P.R. had plated four runs without so much as an extra-base hit. Reliever Joe La Sorsa plunked a batter and uncorked a wild pitch, as the crowd and Team Rubio began to come to life with the score 8-6.

It was too late, though, to unwind what Italy had done early. And speaking of early, Cervelli had noted how the early start time in the state of Texas allowed sports fans back on The Boot to plan their evening around the ballgame. He called this “Baseball Night in Italy.”

What a night it was.

“After this spectacle that they're displaying, I know a lot of people are going to want to play for this organization,” Cervelli said. “That's what we want. This tournament should be to help us find players that will want to play for each country.”

For now, this surprisingly powerful posse of paisans has become the talk of the National “Pasta-time.” They’ve been outlasting their World Baseball Classic opponents, smashing their way to the semifinals and earning the amore of baseball’s freshest fans abroad.

“I mean, there was baseball being played at bistros and cafes in Italy tonight over there,” Pasquantino said. “That doesn't happen. Without the group that we have, it just doesn't happen. So we're getting eyeballs on the sport and we're bringing people together. And to me that's what the World Baseball Classic is about.”