BEIJING — Brian Barden singled in the go-ahead run to break a scoreless tie in the 11th inning and the U.S. baseball team beat Japan 4-2 on Wednesday night to earn the third seed into Friday's medal round, while 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, key insurance runs for the Americans in a game that featured fine pitching by both sides.

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 popup to end it with the winning run on first.

The teams concluded preliminary play and Japan (4-3) will take on top-seeded South Korea (7-0) in Friday's first game, then the Americans (5-2) will face defending champion Cuba (6-1) in the night contest.

The teams have a scheduled rest day Thursday.

Barden had drawn a one-out walk in the ninth from Kenshin Kawakami and stole second, then Brown walked one out later before Terry Tiffee grounded out.

Japan manager Senichi Hoshino opted not to hold back top pitching prospect Yu Darvish for the semifinals. Darvish, expected to be a major leaguer in a few years, allowed one hit in five scoreless innings, struck out six and didn't walk a batter.

The right-hander retired the first eight U.S. batters in order before No. 9 hitter Dexter Fowler hit a sharp single to right. Fowler also got the Americans' next hit with a one-out single in the sixth off Masahiro Tanaka, his sixth straight plate appearance reaching base — with five hits and a walk.

Fowler, who missed hitting for the cycle by a home run in Tuesday's win over Taiwan, then grounded out in the eighth.

Japan got the first baserunner of the game past first in the fifth when cleanup hitter Takahiro Arai singled leading off the inning and advanced a base on each of the next two outs, but Murata flied out to end the threat.

A strange thing happened in the sixth. After the third U.S. out, Matt Brown came to the plate and drew ball one before the Japanese manager and players realized it and told the umpires. Brown then headed back to the dugout.