Dante Nori homers twice for Team Italy in World Baseball Classic opener
Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber are both in the World Baseball Classic. They played on Friday night against an (ostensibly) overmatched Brazil team. Edmundo Sosa is on Team Panama. He played on Friday, too.
Dante Nori, who opened the Classic with Team Italy on Saturday, probably had very low odds to hit the first home run by a Phillie in this year’s tournament. If you bet on him to do so (wherever you might find that bet), you won a lot of money.
If you bet on him to hit the first two, you won a fortune.
But that’s what Nori did, cranking a pair of solo homers for the Italians in their win over Brazil at Houston’s Daikin Park. His first, in the seventh, went 420 feet at 104.5 mph off the bat.
His second, the next inning, was to the same part of the ballpark, just 25 feet shorter at 100.8 mph.
It helped elevate Italy’s blowout over Brazil to an 8-0 final score. With Team USA effectively guaranteed to be one of two teams to emerge from Pool B, Italy is a sleeper to steal the other spot from Mexico (or, technically but extremely less likely, 0-1 Great Britain. Brazil, at 0-2, is just about toast, as expected.)
Nori, the club’s No. 7 prospect (according to MLB.com) who also walked and doubled on Saturday, playing like this will help. So will Aaron Nola pitching effectively against that Mexico team that Italy will likely need to take down on March 11.
Nori and Italy will square off against the United States on Tuesday.