Barden, Schierholtz, Brown lead US past Japan

Brian Barden singled in the go-ahead run to break a scoreless tie in the 11th inning as the U.S. baseball team beat Japan 4-2 on Wednesday to earn the third seed into Friday's medal round. The Japanese will be No. 4.

Barden's single off Hitoki Iwase scored Jason Donald from second. International baseball's new extra-innings rule calls for, beginning in the 11th inning, runners to start on first and second with teams able to start at any point in their batting order.

Nate Schierholtz and Matt Brown followed with RBI singles of their own. Casey Weathers allowed consecutive two-out RBI singles to Atsunori Inaba and Hiroyuki Nakajima, then walked Shuichi Murata before getting pinch-hitter Shinnosuke Abe to pop up to end it with the winning run on first.