He had but one inning to give for his country.

He thought he had one more to give. The game was headed into extra innings, the winning team advancing to the championship game of the World Baseball Classic, the losing team eliminated. Kenley Jansen had needed just nine pitches to complete his inning. He said he came off the mound and placed a call to Arizona immediately, to rouse the Dodgers’ brass from a spring training evening and ask if he could pitch one more inning, in front of his home fans, for his homeland.

“I tried, man,” Jansen said. “I was pumped up.”

He said he was denied. Two innings later, so were he and his Netherlands teammates. After 10 innings of traditional baseball, the international tiebreaker rule took effect, and Eddie Rosario delivered the sacrifice fly that gave Puerto Rico a 4-3 victory in 11 incredibly compelling innings at Dodger Stadium.


The Puerto Rican team exploded from its dugout and basically swallowed up Rosario on the field.

Rosario sent the Puerto Ricans into their second consecutive WBC title game. The United States and Japan play in the other semifinal Tuesday, with the winner facing Puerto Rico for the WBC championship Wednesday.

“Guys were pouring their hearts out,” Netherlands Manager Hensley Meulens said.

The pure joy of baseball was on display, the exuberance of Wladimir Balentien flicking his bat aside and pounding his chest after a home run, the hops on Francisco Lindor and Carlos Correa as they leaped skyward for mid-air high-fives, the triumphant bodily thrusts of Javier Baez as he threw out a runner at home plate, the giddiness of Enrique Hernandez celebrating a teammate’s home run by charging out of the dugout draped in a Puerto Rican flag, even the bat flip of Kailan Sams after what he thought was ball four but was actually ball three.


The joy was on display in the stands too. Dodger Stadium was not even half full on Monday, but the historic ballpark shook to the rhythm of whistles, cowbells, tambourines, maracas and drums, for another classic in a World Baseball Classic full of them. This was a festival for more than four hours, closing time forced by the international tiebreaker rule.

Jansen, the Dodgers’ closer, entering to wild applause and his signature “California Love” song. He retired Puerto Rico on nine pitches, from 93-96 mph. That sent the game into extra innings, in a 3-3 tie.

He did not return, even after throwing few pitches, because one inning was all he was allowed.

“That was the deal we had with the Dodgers,” Meulens said.


Edwin Diaz, the Seattle Mariners’ closer, struck out the side for Puerto Rico in the 10th inning. That included a high-and-tight pitch to Balentien that nearly prompted a benches-clearing brawl, but catcher Yadier Molina stepped in front of Balentien and waited there until the situation was defused – a wait long enough that some Netherlands relievers had left their bullpen and had to return before the game could continue.

Molina, the heart and soul of the Puerto Rican team, already had saved his mates repeatedly. He caught Andrelton Simmons off second base and Jurickson Profar off first base in the first inning, the first two outs recorded by Puerto Rico. The Netherlands scored twice in the inning anyway, so Molina might have been all that stood between Puerto Rico and a 4-0 deficit.

“For me, that was the game,” Puerto Rico Manager Edwin Rodriguez said.

The Profar play particularly irked Meulens, since Molina threw Profar out while he was enjoying his hit, after tagging first base but before returning to it.


“Celebrating and not getting back to first base is not acceptable,” Meulens said.

When Jansen could not return for the 10th inning, the Netherlands turned to 7-foot-1 minor league journeyman Loek van Mil, who worked a scoreless inning. Diaz, who had made 15 pitches in his one inning, came back for one more inning, with what he said was the blessing of the Mariners.

“I feel fresh,” Diaz said. “My arm is ready, yes. Can you tell?”

At 99 mph, yes we can.


In the WBC, the 11th inning starts with men on first and second and none out. After a sacrifice bunt and an intentional walk, the Netherlands’ Curt Smith grounded into a bases-loaded double play, with Diaz hopping, skipping and jumping off the field, and with Lindor waving at the Puerto Rican fans behind the dugout to get up and scream, as if he were a football defender urging his crowd to make noise.

The crowd did not need the encouragement but loved it anyway.

In the bottom of the inning, when Puerto Rico got its men on first and second, Rodriguez directed Molina to bunt, even though Molina had popped up a bunt attempt in his previous at-bat.

“We have to play the game the right way,” Rodriguez said.


Molina got the bunt down this time. An intentional walk followed, loading the bases, with van Mil now deep into his second inning of work.

On the first pitch, Rosario hit the game-winning, bedlam-inducing sacrifice fly. Puerto Rico had advanced, on tiebreaker rules with which Rodriguez said he did not agree.

“Play all the way,” he said. “We’ve been doing that for a hundred-something years.”

Diaz turns 23 on Wednesday, the day of the WBC title game. Puerto Rico lost the last WBC title game to the Dominican Republic, 3-0.


“When I was younger, I saw the games,” Diaz said, “but now I’m living them.”

Jansen, 29, might never get as close to a WBC championship as he did Monday, but he said he had no hard feelings about the Dodgers refusing to let him pitch a second inning in the game. He understood that the Dodgers were his “No. 1 priority,” but he could not stop smiling about how much fun he had here Monday, even in defeat.

“It was a blast,” he said. “It was a great thing for baseball.”

Four hours and 19 minutes, and never did the game drag. It was taut, and it was tense and, yes, it was a pretty cool thing.


bill.shaikin@latimes.com

Follow Bill Shaikin on Twitter @BillShaikin