Beijing: The United States beat Japan 8-4 to win the bronze medal as baseball prepares to bow out of the Beijing Olympics on Saturday.
Cuba will defend its Olympic title against South Korea in the gold medal match on Saturday night, in the sport's farewell from the Olympic programme.
The United States, crushed by Cuba 10-2 in their semi-final, took control against Japan when Taylor Teagarden and Jason Donald belted decisive blows that saw the USA break a 4-4 tie with four runs at the bottom of the fifth inning.
After Matt Brown doubled and Nate Schierholtz walked, Brown stole third base and Teagarden clobbered another double against relief pitcher Kenshin Kawakami that sent Brown and Schierholtz home.
Donald followed with a two-run homer, the ball hitting the third-base post and into fair territory.
Japan had opened the scoring when Masahiro Araki drove a solo home run off starting American pitcher Brett Anderson.
Matt Laporta levelled in the second inning when he hit the ball to the stands beyond the right-field wall when the USA had two outs.
The third inning exploded with three runs for both sides to raise the score to 4-4.
Left-hander Norichika Aoki slammed a three-run homer after Anderson got himself into a jam by walking Shuichi Murata and Tsuyoshi Nishioka in between a Takahiko Sato sacrifice bunt that advanced Murata to second base.
Brown then belted an off-speed full count pitch beyond the centre field wall for a three-run home run that chased Japanese starter Tsuyoshi Wada from the mound.
Brian Barden had reached second base when outfielder Sato failed to catch his fly ball, and Jayson Nix walked on a full count.
Japan mounted a final rally on the ninth inning off closer Kevin Jepsen.
Aoki reached base on a fielder's choice and after Atsunori Inaba's foul ball was caught by catcher Teagarden for the second out, Hiroyuki Nakajima added a hit to put two runners on base.
Both had advanced to third and second before Jepson had Shinnosuke Abe ground out to first to end the match.
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