Mexico eliminates Team USA

~ Mexico posted a 2-1 victory over Roger Clemens and his fellow All-Stars.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Roger Clemens was a loser in what might have been the final start of his outstanding career, and Mexico eliminated Team USA from the World Baseball Classic.

Oliver Perez and seven relievers combined to pitch a three-hitter Thursday night as Mexico beat the Rocket and the United States 2-1, giving Japan another shot at Korea in the WBC semifinals.

The outcome was a stunner, considering Team USA fielded a lineup loaded with All-Stars even without Derrek Lee and Johnny Damon, sidelined with sore left shoulders.

South Korea had a 3-0 second-round record in Group One, with Team USA, Japan and Mexico all going 1-2. Japan earned the second semifinal berth from the group by allowing the fewest runs in games between the tied teams.

Japan, which has already lost twice to South Korea in the Classic, faces its archrival in Saturday's opening semifinal game at Petco Park in San Diego, with the Dominican Republic meeting Cuba on Saturday night. The winners play Monday night for the championship.

Clemens allowed six hits and two runs in 4 1-3 innings with no walks and four strikeouts.

Perez allowed only one hit in three scoreless innings, and the Mexican bullpen later retired 12 straight batters until Chipper Jones drew a one-out walk off Jorge De La Rosa in the ninth. Luis Ayala then walked Alex Rodriguez, but David Cortes needed only one pitch, getting Vernon Wells to ground into a game-ending double play.

Mexico took a 1-0 lead off Clemens in the third on a leadoff double by Mario Valenzuela and a two-out single by Jorge Cantu.

But it wasn't that simple.

A television replay showed Valenzuela's fly ball hit the right field foul pole at least 10 feet off the ground and bounced back onto the field. However, first base umpire Bob Davidson didn't see it that way, and Valenzuela wound up at second.

It was Davidson, umpiring behind the plate, who ruled that Japan's Tsuyoshi Nishioka left third base early in the eighth inning Sunday to negate a sacrifice fly that would have snapped a 3-3 tie in a game Team USA eventually won 4-3.

The Americans tied it in the fourth off Francisco Campos when Jones doubled, took third on a fly ball and scored on Wells' sacrifice fly, barely beating right fielder Valenzuela's throw to the plate.

Mexico took a 2-1 lead in the fifth and chased Clemens, who left after allowing a single to Valenzuela, a sacrifice, and a single by Alfredo Amezaga to put runners at first and third. Cantu followed with an RBI grounder off Scot Shields.

The Americans blew an opportunity against Edgar Gonzalez in the top of the fifth, when Jeff Francoeur opened with a double and Michael Barrett was hit by a pitch. Francoeur strayed off second when Michael Young squared to bunt, and was caught in a rundown. Gonzalez then retired Young and Derek Jeter on ground balls to end the inning.

Thanks to exceptional work by relievers Ricardo Rincon and Oscar Villareal, Team USA wouldn't have another baserunner until the ninth.

The game was played before an announced crowd of 38,284 at Angel Stadium. Among those attending was Commissioner Bud Selig, a proponent of the Classic.

"The intensity has been just remarkable," Selig said. "In the end, the beneficiary of all this will be baseball all over the world. I mean, who knows, long after I'm gone, this event will be big. But more importantly than this event will be big is what it's going to do for baseball, including American baseball.

"This morning, you read that people are mad that ESPN hasn't shown enough games. Well if you had told somebody that two or three weeks ago, they would have all laughed. Now people are mad they can't get the games."