Results tagged ‘ WBC ’
The Netherlands strike again
I’ve just woken up to the news that the Netherlands have beaten the Dominican Republic, knocking the latter out of the WBC.
It really is a remarkable achievement by the Dutch team. The Dominican clearly missed players like Albert Pujols and A-Rod, but they still had plenty of players with Big League experience in their side. The Netherlands stuck in there, keeping the game close and doing all they could to put pressure on the opposition.
That pressure paid in the end.
It’s terrible news for fans in the Dominican Republic, who love baseball as much as anyone. They will be hurting right now and there will be more than a few of their players who will feel that they didn’t quite give their best in this tournament.
Still, it’s a real shot in the arm for European baseball.
Bad luck to Italy, who who overpowered by Venezuela. Making it to the final eliminator was a more than credible showing by the team in any case.
Mixed fortunes for European teams
The WBC games on Monday saw Italy and the Netherlands facing the hosts of their respective pools.
Italy caused an upset by winning in Toronto 6-2 and knocking Canada out of the tournament. It was an impressive display by the Italians and particularly by Chris Denorfia. The latter is perhaps not the most Italian person in the world, but he does have a legitimate claim to be on the team thanks to his paternal grandmother.
It was a great win for Italy and their fans will be especially proud of the contributions made by players from their own league.
Giuseppe Mazzanti of Danesi Nettuno went 2 for 5 against Canada, following up his domestic 2008 season when he won the batting title in the Italian Baseball League. Second baseman Davide Dallospedale, who plays for Cariparma, went 1 for 4 with an RBI and a run, while Chris Cooper of Grosetto pitched 2.2 effective innings.
Italy now face Venezuela for a place in the second round.
The Netherlands will also be in a ’winner progresses-loser goes home’ game after they lost 3-1 to Puerto Rico. In their previous game, the Dutch took an early lead and held on to beat the Dominican Republic in stunning fashion. It looked like the same tactic may work for a second time, as the Netherlands scored a run in the second inning and spent the rest of the game trying their best to hold on to the advantage.
This time they couldn’t quite manage it, despite a good start by Marlins’ pitcher Rick van den Hurk, and a big three-run eighth inning saw Puerto Rico delight their home crowd with a win that sees them through to the next round.
The Dutch now have to face the Dominican Republic again, only this time the latter will be out for revenge! It would be no surprise if David Ortiz and his fellow Major Leaguers made their greater ability and experience pay, but the Netherlands can go into the game knowing that they have beaten their opponents before so they can do it again.
Whatever happens in their next games, both Italy and the Netherlands have given a good account of themselves and European baseball as whole in this WBC.
For more info on European baseball, be sure to check out www.mister-baseball.com .
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.
Netherlands beat the Dominican Republic
Wow!
The Netherlands have just completed a stunning 3-2 victory over their star-laden opponents. They scratched out three runs in the first inning thanks to a wild pitch by Edinson Volquez and a throwing error by Hanley Ramirez, and that was all the run support they needed.
There were a few nervy moments along the way, but the Dutch were always going to need a bit of luck to come out on top. They pitched out of jams, turned a few timely defensive plays and closed the door at the end.
It looked like the Dominican Republic were going to rescue the situation when Willy Taveras was stood on second in the top of the ninth. So often you see a near-dramatic victory get taken away from a team. Not this time. Taveras made an ill-advised attempt to steal third and he was gunned down by catcher Kenley Jansen. The MLB.tv announcers had spoken about how impressive the Dodger prospect’s arm was and he gave us a demonstration in a spirit-crushing play.
The scene at the end said it all. The Netherlands celebrated like they had won the WBC; that’s how much this victory meant to them.
Europe’s top team has done the continent proud.
Honkball reigns supreme!
WBC provides a Saturday baseball feast
It’s amazing to think that baseball fans all around the world can sign up to MLB.tv and watch games live at the same time in completely different environments and settings. Some will be watching in a midday heatwave, others will take in the game on a cool evening, and yet more will be trying to keep awake while peering out from under the duvet in the early hours.
For Brits, the time difference with the States usually means one of two things: 1) that a sunny day game can be enjoyed in the early evening and 2) that night games lead to a first pitch time of one or three o’clock in the morning.
More often than not, the result is that a fair bit of planning is required to take in a game. The only way I can get through the World Series live (and the Fall Classic has to be seen live if at all possible) is to book the days off from work, get a few hours sleep beforehand, wake at one in the morning, watch the game then get a few more hours sleep after the final out has been recorded.
Not that I’m complaining. It’s become part of the annual ritual and somehow it wouldn’t quite feel the same watching the World Series at a normal hour.
Anyway, the time difference can work in our favour just as often as it leads us to broken sleep. Today is definitely one of those occasions.
As an international baseball fan, I absolutely love the World Baseball Classic. A look through some of the BaseballGB posts on the Classic will prove this fact. I can fully understand why teams are incredibly protective of their players (especially pitchers) and would prefer them not to be taking part at this time of year, but seeing some of the top players competing for their country is a joy. International competition is a fundamental part of all British sports and the WBC can become a great way to sell the sport to new territories.
While a handful of games have already been played, this is really the day on which the 2009 WBC kicks into gear. Here’s what I have on my viewing list.
We start with a clash between Japan and Korea, which should be a classic. Daisuke Matsuzaka will be on the mound competing against the Olympic champions in front of a rapturous Tokyo Dome crowd. It’s an early start for those of you on the east coast and even earlier for those of you on the west coast, but in Britain it’s a very convenient ten o’clock in the morning.
At four o’clock in the afternoon, the top European team will be taking on one of the tournament favourites. The Netherlands couldn’t have been handed a more difficult opening opponent than the Dominican Republic; however, I’m confident that they can put in a good showing (even though it’s likely to be in a losing cause) and hopefully that will give them confidence to go on and capture second place in Pool D.
The final spot on my Saturday viewing list belongs to Canada versus the USA, with first pitch at seven o’clock in the evening. Two proud nations that will not want to lose to the other: it should make for facinating viewing, not least because the U.S. have revenge on their minds after Canada’s victory in 2006.
Thanks to MLB.tv, I’ll be able to watch them all and with a bit of luck I’ll be able to take a look at the new Flash-based media player in the process.
A day full of baseball, all at a convenient time. Sounds good to me!
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