Wearing countries' colors, Red Sox teammates one-up each other in Mexico-USA

Roman Anthony and Jarren Duran will share plenty of time in the Red Sox outfield this season. For now, they’re competing against each other for World Baseball Classic glory.

In a key moment early in the United States-Mexico game on Monday, Mexico’s Duran committed a little Sox-on-Sox crime against the United States’ Anthony.

After Anthony worked a walk against Mexico in the second inning, Brice Turang roped a double into the right-field corner at Houston’s Daikin Park. Duran quickly retrieved the ball and uncorked a perfect throw to second baseman Nick Gonzales, who promptly fired the ball home to nab Anthony at home plate, keeping the game’s first run off the board.

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With both clubs entering the game 2-0 in Pool B play, it was Duran who provided one of the biggest moments of the game. It also gave Duran some bragging rights over his Red Sox teammate ... at least for a short time. The very next inning, Anthony clubbed a three-run home run to give the U.S. a commanding 5-0 lead.

That wasn’t the end of the back and forth between Duran and Anthony, though. Mexico started chipping away at its deficit in the sixth inning when Duran hit an opposite-field solo home run against Matthew Boyd into Houston’s Crawford Boxes. Two innings later, Duran got Boyd again, hitting a solo homer to right field to pull Mexico within two runs.

Ultimately, though, it was Anthony’s U.S. squad that prevailed with a 5-3 victory, giving the United States a 3-0 record in Pool B play and putting it on the right track to advance to the quarterfinals. After the game, Anthony said that the two players texted about what went down.

"We've already texting a little bit. He had a great night. He looks great. He looked great early in spring. It's going to be fun to play them during the year," Anthony said. "But I think for right now we're just staying with our teams and doing our own thing."