Australia has opened the World Baseball Classic in Tokyo by beating Taiwan 3-0 on Robbie Perkins' two-run homer in the fifth inning and Travis Bazzana’s homer in the seventh at the Tokyo Dome.

Drew Rasmussen took a perfect game into the ninth inning, and the Tampa Bay Rays expanded their lead over Baltimore for the final AL wild card to 1 1/2 games with a 4-1 victory over the Orioles.

Anthony Rizzo homered three times to take over the major league lead, Aaron Judge connected on his birthday and Joey Gallo ended the longest home-run drought of his career as the New York Yankees outslugged the Baltimore Orioles 12-8.

Gary Sánchez lined a winning single in the 10th inning, and the New York Yankees overcame a five-run deficit to beat the Minnesota Twins 6-5.

Brett Phillips capped his first career two-homer game with a tiebreaking grand slam in the eighth inning, and the Tampa Bay Rays rallied to beat the Baltimore Orioles 9-6 for a three-game sweep.

In a game delayed for several minutes while a bevy of groundskeepers tried to corral a scaredy cat in the outfield, the Baltimore Orioles hit four solo homers off Yankees newcomer Andrew Heaney to beat New York 7-1.

Miami Marlins infielder Eddy Alvarez and four-time Olympic women’s basketball gold medalist Sue Bird will be the U.S. flag bearers for the opening ceremonies of the Tokyo Games.