World Baseball Classic Discussion

[Guest Mr. Potato Head]

Beatnik's working it (he's an usher at Skydome).

[sahyder1]

Dominican down 1 run to the Dutch....bottom of the 9th right now

[sahyder1]

This Canada/USA game has been very entertaining so far.

[I Love Pokemon]

for sure. Great game, so far i'm really enjoying it.

[Maxx]

Wow, Venezuela has a great lineup. If Santana and Zambrano hadn't dropped out, they might have won the whole thing.

[EddieG]

Oh yeah the Dutch won B-) And go Venezuela.. yeah my girlfriend's from Venezuela so y'kno

[sahyder1]

Wow, Venezuela has a great lineup. If Santana and Zambrano hadn't dropped out, they might have won the whole thing.

This is the their first game that I am watching but what the he'll were they thinking wasting Felix Hernandez against Italy and not saving me him.

[I Love Pokemon]

Great game by Team USA. Man the last minute addition of Adam Dunn is sure paying off well.

If we play like we did in the 6th the rest of the tournament we have to be the favorite.

Armando Galarraga pitched pretty well despite giving up the 2 runs, he did have 4 K's.

SO now we get either a rematch of today or with Canada on Wed.

In other news man did Australia smackdown Mexico, if Mexico loses tommorow to South Africa they are done. And Japan vs Korea for the Pool tommorow, plus Netherlands vs Puerto Rico, should be a fun day.

Anyways i think Puerto Rico beats Netherlands, Mexico beats South Africa and Japan beats Korea, and Canada beats Italy.

[Maxx]

Victor Zambrano is an American hero!

Venezuelen hero? Not so much.

That was seriously the most predictable rally I've ever seen. Well we're down by a run...oh wait they're bringing in Victor Zambrano? Nevermind, we got this.

[I Love Pokemon]

Yeah. I remember when he left Tampa and some people said he had big things in his future, but he's never even sniffed those expectations.

[sahyder1]

That trade was the worst thing that could have happened to him. He was a good pitcher up to that point. Had several performances against the Yanks and Sox. But he got hurt right after the trade...the Mets missed the playoffs and Kazmir became an instant star. Zambrano has never recovered from that.

[I Love Pokemon]

Yeah, Kazmir has become one of the AL's Best Pitchers when healthy. I forgot that he was traded for Zambrano. I remember that some "experts said that it was a bad trade and Zambrano was going to be a star, funny how that turned out.

[sahyder1]

Someone explain to me how Canada lost to a steroids using washed up pitcher?

[HailtotheYo]

There's plenty of speculation that Zambrano wasn't exactly "healthy" when traded. I've got some pretty bitter Met fan friends (one of which lived in Tampa at the time) that lend to that belief. That isn't the only source of this though. I do remember plenty of reports at the time that were of the "this damage is a bit much for having just occured" type of vibe.

This has been a pretty interesting WBC this go 'round. Much better than all this bullshit with A-Rod and the like.

[Toe]

Someone explain to me how Canada lost to a steroids using washed up pitcher?

It's the SkyDome curse. You play a team you should beat and you get plenty of runners on base, but almost every opportunity is ended by double plays and strikeouts. I told my brother this, and he agreed with me.

[I Love Pokemon]

The only good thing about the Canada/Italy game was Morneau's 4/5 game, it was great to see.

Though i was looking forward to us playing them again, but oh well.

[sahyder1]

The Dutch beat the Dominican once again eliminating them from the tournament.

[TheHurk]

The Netherlands winning proves a couple of things. First, any team with Jose Reyes on it will never win anything, ever. Second, the rest of the WBC field clearly needs to watch out for the Dutch. I don't know how, but they can handle the Dominicans, so they must be doing something right. That, or the Dominicans just didn't take this seriously and deserved to get knocked out early.

[EddieG]

I really don't get the format of this tournament

Watching Holland - PR yesterday it said loser gets eliminated..

Than I come in here and see Holland beat DR to go through to the next round.. looking at the WBC website I find out Holland have to play PR again.. what the hell can somebody explain just how this tournament works ?

[TheHurk]

I really don't get the format of this tournament

Watching Holland - PR yesterday it said loser gets eliminated..

Than I come in here and see Holland beat DR to go through to the next round.. looking at the WBC website I find out Holland have to play PR again.. what the hell can somebody explain just how this tournament works ?

I don't think I ever saw where it said the loser of the Netherlands/P.R. game was knocked out. It's a double elimination tourney, at least in the first round. The next matchup is to determine the #1 seed coming out of that Pool. The winner of that game faces the loser of the rematch between USA/Venezuela, while the loser gets, more than likely, the USA. I'm not sure I agree with the way the whole thing is being played out, as Korea beat Japan TWICE in the past WBC, but Japan ended up winning the whole thing, but I can't fight it.