Results tagged ‘ Korea ’
WBC Final – Japan retain their title
The World Baseball Classic final more than lived up to the high expectations placed on it. Japan and Korea put on an excellent show, displaying some exceptional fielding in a closely contested encounter. There really wasn’t much between the two sides and it was a classic case where neither side really deserved to lose.
Baseball fans were the winner, that’s for sure!
My review of the final, and why it showed how special the WBC is, can be found on BaseballGB.co.uk.
What I didn’t mention in the review was that my enjoyment of the game was reduced a little by knowing the outcome before I sat down to watch it.
As first pitch was set for around 1:30 in the early hours of the morning UK time, I decided to get some sleep rather than catch it live and to watch the game back via the archive function on MLB.com (having booked the day off work – and, yes, I do plan my annual leave around the baseball season! April 6 and 7 are already booked so that I can enjoy the opening to the MLB regular season, with more than a little help from MLB.tv.).
E-mails, RSS feeds and Twitter accounts were all out of bounds when I woke up and I had carefully set up a bookmark to the ‘media center’ page on MLB.com so that I could click on the game without seeing any baseball news. Everything was set.
Everything apart from the ‘News and Alerts’ box inside the (soon to be ‘old’) media player. I’ve been watching games live recently and rarely pay much attention to the news box, so it completely slipped my mind that I should have clicked the cross to turn it off.
Sure enough, after entering my log-in details, the first thing I saw was something along the lines of ”Ichiro lifts the WBC trophy”. I quickly looked away, but it was too late by then.
Damn!
I didn’t know exactly how the game had panned out so I was still able to enjoy it, but Korea’s ninth inning comeback would have been even more exciting had I not already known that it was going to happen.
Oh well, it’s a lesson learned. I’ll definitely be checking for any ’news’ boxes on the new media player when the final version goes live. Us Brits tend to watch quite a few archive games once the season has started (the live games not always being at the most convenient time for us) and making sure you don’t find out the score beforehand can require military-style planning. Setting up preferences on the new media player will be one job that I won’t be forgetting now.
A Classic in the making
Tonight’s WBC final between Japan and Korea has all the ingredients to be something special.
It’s a clash between the two Asian baseball superpowers; the reigning WBC champion against the reigning Olympic champion. They are evenly matched, despite Japan’s 14-2 ‘mercy’ victory in round one, and they both know that they can beat the other.
The only downside is that we’ve already seen four games between these two nations in the tournament. That’s something to be rectified for the 2013 event, but for now we can overlook it.
This isn’t simply game five, it’s the only game that matters.
A preview of the game can be found at Baseballgb.co.uk.
Korea through to the final
I wrote about big decisions yesterday. Venezuela made one by starting Carlos Silva in their semi-final against Korea and it backfired badly. A five-run first inning catapulted the Koreans to a 10-2 victory and a Monday night contest against either the US or Japan.
Silva’s final line was 1.1 innings pitched with six hits (two of which were round-trippers) and seven runs conceded. Along with the rest of the pitching staff, he wasn’t helped much by some dreadful defense that resulted in five errors: a WBC record not to be proud of.
Even so, it would be unfair to focus too much on Venezuela’s failings at the expense of a winning performance by Korea.
The Olympic champions are on course to secure a famous double triumph that will cement their place as the leading international team. Others might try and stake a claim to that title, not least Cuba, but overall talent and previous achievements should only count for so much. Baseball, like all sports, is a results-orientated competition. If Korea can make it two major international tournament victories in a row, you would have to say that they will be the team to beat heading into the next one: the Baseball World Cup in September.
Judging by the MLB.com Recap and various accounts of the game, what seemed a mouth-watering tie in prospect turned out to be a one-sided affair.
It’s up to Japan and the US to make amends tonight and I’m sure they will. The combination of two excellent teams fighting for a spot in the final should make for a cracking game.
Whoever you are supporting, I hope you enjoy the game.
Big decisions
As the World Baseball Classic reaches a climax, the managers of the four remaining teams have some big decisions to make. Most of them relate to picking which pitcher should take the mound for the semi-final.
The US have decided to start the Astros’ Roy Oswalt in the semi-final against Japan instead of Jake Peavy. Barry Bloom’s piece on the WBC website brings up the Padres’ ill-fated decision to hold Peavy back in the 2006 NLDS for a game five that never arrived, but this is a very different situation.
In that case, the then-Padres manager Bruce Bochy’s other option was Woody Williams. The US manager Davey Johnson has Oswalt to turn to. While Williams had a solid career, there’s a world of difference there. Add in the fact that Peavy has been hit all over the park in his previous two WBC starts and the decision looks entirely sensible.
Bloom also notes that Japan’s manager Tatsunori Hara waited until the US had made their plans clear before confirming the news that Daisuke Matsuzaka will start the semi-final.
Oswalt versus Dice-K? Sounds like a must-see contest. It’s a shame it begins at one in the morning UK time. A late night could be on the cards!
Japan would choose from Yu Darvish or Hisashi Iwakuma for the final if they make it through. However the bigger issue could be the player who has just gone back to Japan. Murata is their one true big-bopper and losing him is a big blow. Not that the US will be crying about it. They’ve had more than enough bad luck of their own when it comes to injuries.
As for the other semi-final, Venezuela have opted for Carlos Silva over his Mariners team mate Felix Hernandez. It could be a risky move. Not many would choose Silva over King Felix in a must-win game, but he has pitched well in the Classic so far after a disastrous 2008 MLB season.
Korea will go with the impressive right-hander Suk-Min Yoon. He faces a very tough batting lineup, but don’t count the Koreans out.
Four teams left and you can’t choose between them. The semi-finals should live up to the ‘classic’ billing.
More Classic baseball
The World Baseball Classic provided another group of exciting games on Sunday.
I wasn’t able to watch any of them live, which meant that this morning served as a trial run for the season ahead. As a British baseball fan, the morning MLB.com visit becomes part of your daily routine. You wake up, fix yourself some breakfast and then log on to see what happened in MLB while you were asleep.
Invariably this will start with a visit to your chosen team’s home page. As the page loads, you cross your fingers and repeat in your mind “win, win, win” before the outcome of the previous night’s game finally reveals itself. It can either get your day off to a bad start or see you heading off to work with a spring in your step. As an A’s fan, the balance of grumpy and happy days leaned firmly towards the former last year, but I’m hopeful that 2009 may be different.
Anyway, this morning’s MLB.com visit led me straight to the four WBC Recap clips.
The big shock was Australia’s thumping win over Mexico. It is always dangerous to count out the Aussies. Their sporting pedigree is second to none, as any English cricket/rugby fan can testify. After winning the silver medal in the 2004 Olympics (demoting a very talented Japanese team – including Dice-K, Kuroda, Fukudome and Jojima - into third place), Australia fell back to earth with a bump when they failed to even qualify for the 2008 event. Of course, the make-up of the team changes slightly when the WBC comes around, but I thought they might see this as an opportunity to put that disappointment behind them and they’ve certainly started off in impressive fashion.
Elsewhere, Cuba had a comfortable win over South Africa, the Dominican Republic put their opening defeat to the Netherlands behind them with a 9-0 victory over Panama (sending the latter out of the WBC) and America booked their place in round two with a resounding 15-6 win over Venezuela.
The highlight of the day was Adam Dunn’s bomb to right field at the Rogers Center. While it was great news for the Nationals, I’m still mystified as to why a play-off contender (and I’m sure Nats fans won’t take offense at me taking their team out of that bracket) didn’t pick him up. A two year/$20m contract looks very reasonable. Although he is poor in the field, Dunn’s production will outstrip what the majority of AL teams will get from their DH spot this season.
In particular, he would have made a massive difference to the Twins’ batting lineup. It’s easy to focus on deals that are made and which go wrong, but sometimes the more costly decisions are where you take a pass on a player.
Dunn’s WBC performance may have a few GM’s questioning whether they made a mistake this off-season.
However, that’s for later. Right now, Korea and Japan have just started the latest instalment in what’s becoming an epic rivalry. Korea will be out for revenge after their loss via the ‘mercy’ rule a couple of days ago.
The games just keep on coming. It’s a great time of year.
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