A lot has happened...
...in the World Baseball Classic since my last post. Sorry, I got distracted by a 24-hour 24 season 1 marathon (which was awesome), but I'm back now.
Earlier tonight A-Rod led the U.S. over Japan with a clutch RBI single with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. This was just the latest in what has been a great couple of days of baseball. I didn't get around to posting about the Cuba-Panama game or the U.S.-Canada games, both of which were great to watch (even though the U.S. lost). I was shocked that Canada (aka Will Bardwell's favorite country) played such a good all-around game. They came out fired up and played aggressive baseball. Conversely, The U.S. started out flatter than a sheet of paper, but turned it on in mid innings and made it a close game. I'm a little worried about the U.S. offense though. Almost everyone of our RBI's have come from homeruns. Not that this is a bad thing, but I'd like to see some manufactured runs because I don't want to see the U.S. try to over power the Domincan.
Anybody's that reading this has probably already heard the specifics of what happened, but as bad as the U.S. played, it was still a good game to watch, and a lot of people did. Bob DuPuy, the President of MLB, posted that more people watched the U.S.-Canada game then any NBA game on ESPN or ESPN2, so far this year, making it the most watched sporting event ESPN has aired in 2006. His blog is Bob's Classic Chronicles. I think everybody's favorite internet dancer Tangy has posted a couple of comments. Look for sam007reb on the comment boards.
Even though Panama didn't make it to the second round, I was really impressed with their play in their first two games. They stood toe-to-toe with mighty Cuba, who beat Venezuela earlier today 7-2, and Puerto Rico, who is currently in a 1-1 tie with the Dominican. But then on Friday, the doormat of the WBC, the Netherlands, surpisingly threw combined no-hitter to a Panama line-up that featured a couple of solid Major Leaguers including Carlos Lee. I've been amazed at some of the first in this tournament:
First Homerun: Wang Wei from China.
First No-hitter: The Netherlands.
First inside the park homerun: Adam Stern
First hitter with multiple homeruns in one game: Adrain Beltre (maybe this is not as suprising as the rest).
Speaking of suprises and Adrian Beltre, wow! The guy has 4 homers in 4 games and, as of the 5th inning of today's Domincan game, is batting over .500 in the tournament. He's also made some great plays at third base, including two great plays on hard hit balls tonight.
Another suprise for me has been Chan Ho-Park. After starting off his carreer with a bang, he's become a mediocre and overpayed starter as of late. But he's been moved into the closing role for Koren team, and he's 2-2 in save opportunities. With the lack of reliable closers in bigs today, some pitching coach somewhere has to be thinking about giving Park the ball in the ninth instead of the first. Park pitched two innings against the Royals in an exhibition, so it will be interesting to see how he is used against the Mexicans later tonight.
But the guy that has impressed me most is Cuba's second baseman Yulieski Gourriel. This guy is an everyday thirdbaseman, but has moved over to second for the tournament and hasn't missed anything defensively. On offense, he's shown all sorts of hitting skill and baserunning talent.
As for my two teams, Atlanta and Baltimore, the tournament has given me some things to be happy and worried about. Chipper Jones has had a fantastic tournament on both offense and defense. He looks a lot more like the Chipper of 5 years ago than the guy that has spent most of his time in the dugout the last two years. Also, for the Braves, Jeff Francour has played some pretty solid defense and made some great throws in from the out field, but he hasn't really shown much with the bat. I haven't really been able to follow any of these Braves' Caribean relievers, so I don't know how they've been doing.
I've had a lot of fun following all of the different Orioles playing. Four out of five of Balitmore's starters, Eric Berdard, Daniel Cabrera, Bruce Chen, and Rodrigo Lopez are pitching well in tournament. Of course, Baltimore's top pitching prospect Adam Lowen pichted really well, and probably above his head, against the states. Javy Lopez has also had a good tournament playing firstbase for Puerto Rico as Venezuela/Baltimore catcher Ramon Hernadez. However, I'm worried about Miguel Tejada's peformance. He only has two singles on the tournament, one them a bunt. He's clearly not swinging the bat well. Normally I wouldn't put too much stock in a bad peformance this early in the year, but his behavior this off-season makes me wonder if his head is in the right place. Couple this with his less-than-Tejadesque peformance at the end of the season last year and it makes me worried.