Thanks to the Dominican Republic's nail-biting, 11-inning 10-3 victory over Colombia on Sunday afternoon, the United States once again controls its own destiny in the World Baseball Classic.
The D.R., which lost a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the eighth before eventually pulling out the win at Marlins Park, improved to 3-0 in the first round and thereby advanced as Pool C's top seed. It will begin second-round play against the winner of Pool D on Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET in San Diego.
With Colombia's hard-fought loss dropping it to 1-2, the U.S. (1-1) can clinch a berth in the second round -- and a 9 p.m. ET Wednesday matchup against the Pool D runner-up -- by beating Canada (0-2) tonight at 7 p.m. ET. The game will air live on MLB Network and on MLB.TV in the U.S.
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However, if the Americans lose, things get more complicated.
In that scenario, Colombia, the U.S. and Canada all would be tied at 1-2 in Pool C. There then would be a tiebreaker process used to rank those three teams. The top two would play a tiebreaker game on Monday at 6 p.m. ET in Miami, and the other would be eliminated.
Here are the rules used to determine the ranking of the three squads in question:
• The first tiebreaker considers each team's runs allowed per inning of defense played (including partial innings), only in games against the other two teams that are tied. In other words, if the U.S. ends up tied with Colombia and Canada at 1-2, its two runs allowed in 10 innings in its win over Colombia would count, but its seven runs allowed to the D.R. would not.
In relevant games, the U.S. has allowed two runs in 10 innings (0.20), Colombia four in 19 (.21) and Canada four in nine (0.44).
• If necessary, the second tiebreaker is the same as the first, except only earned runs are counted.
• If there is still a tie, the relevant teams then would be ranked in order of highest batting average -- again considering only contests played against each other.
• Finally, the last resort would be a drawing of lots, conducted by World Baseball Classic, Inc.
The World Baseball Classic runs through March 22. In the U.S., games air live exclusively in English on MLB Network and on an authenticated basis via MLBNetwork.com/watch, while ESPN Deportes and WatchESPN provide the exclusive Spanish-language coverage. MLB.TV Premium subscribers in the U.S. have access to watch every tournament game live on any of the streaming service's 400-plus supported devices. The tournament is being distributed internationally across all forms of television, internet, mobile and radio in territories excluding the U.S., Puerto Rico and Japan. Get tickets for games at Marlins Park, Tokyo Dome, Estadio Charros de Jalisco in Mexico, Petco Park, as well as the Championship Round at Dodger Stadium, while complete coverage -- including schedules, video, stats and gear -- is available at WorldBaseballClassic.com.