Baseball rules the winner. This is known as a walk-off. The basic contest is always between the "pitcher" for the fielding team, and a "batter". The pitcher throws—"pitches"—the ball towards home plate, where the "catcher" for the fielding team waits (in a crouched stance) to receive it. Behind the catcher stands the home plate umpire. The batter stands in one of the batter's boxes and tries to hit the ball with a bat. The pitcher must keep one foot in contact with the top or front of the pitcher's rubber — a 24×6 in (61×15 cm) plate located atop the pitcher's mound
Israel at the World Baseball Classic of prominent Major Leaguers including Didi Gregorius, Xander Bogaerts, and Jonathan Schoop, 4-2 as Josh Zeid garnered his second save. Israel worked in nine pitchers during the game. In what NBC reported was thought to be the tallest batter-pitcher matchup in baseball history, the Dutch team’s pitcher Loek Van Mil walked Israel's first baseman Nate Freiman. Team Israel swept Pool A, 3-0, finishing atop the four-team pool, and outscoring its opponents 21-10. Israel became the first baseball team to go undefeated in the first round of the WBC’s main draw after entering the main draw by winning in a qualifying