WBC: Yesterday Recap and Today's Highlight Game
Yesterday I picked the Dominican Republic v. Venezuela over USA v. Mexico as the highlight game of the day. When the day was over, both the U.S.-Mexico game and the Panama-Puerto Rico game were closer in the final score. However, the Domincan-Venezuela game was an awful lot of fun to watch, and the final score of Domincan 11 Venezuela 5 was anything but representative of how matched the teams were.
While the U.S.-Mexico game was close in score, Mexico never got a baserunner past first base. Needless to say, it was clear that Mexico wasn't going to score, and that it was only a question of how many runs the U.S. could produce. 
D-Lee and Chipper produced enough with 2 solo Homers.
But the best game of the day may have been Puerto Rico v. Panama. Puerto Rico was a heavy favorite going into the game, but only squeeked out a one run win. The Panamanian pitching was able to hold back the potent Puerto Rican offense, but the Puerto Rican pitching was just a little too good for the Panamanian offense to over come.
The biggest suprise of the day was the South Africans, who almost pulled out a win against Canada. At the last minute Canada switched their pitching rotation, deciding to pitch the Orioles' star Eric Berdard who was scheduled to start against the U.S. Still, Canada needed two runs going into the ninth to pull out the victory; the got four and won 11-8.
Yesterday, I was sure that today's HIGHLIGHT GAME would be the Canada-U.S. matchup. But, after listening to the Puerto Rico-Panama game on my XM Radio, I've changed my mind. Today's highlight game is the 6 pm central meeting of Panama and Cuba.
Panama will start Baltimore's number four starter (and Cy Young Winner in my 2005 season of MVP Baseball) Bruce Chen and will rely heavily on the bat of Carlos Lee on the offensive side. Not much is known about team Cuba, other than they won the Olympic gold medal in 1992, 1996 and 2004; in 2000, Cuba lost the gold to the United States. But the average age of their roster coming into today's game is 24 years old.
Panama and Cuba have played multiple times in winterball, but Cuba has never faced the major leaguer Chen. This may favor team Panama's manager Anibal Reluz, who probably knows more about Cuba than the American media sources. I think that while Cuba is the favorite, if Chen pitches a good four innings and Reluz can effectively manipulate match-ups, then Panama could pull off the upset. The game will be on ESPN2 at 12:00 noon central time.
The Canada-USA game will be on ESPN2 at 3:00 central. Maybe Canada will show up and make the game more interesting, and I'm looking forward to watching Canada's starter and Baltimore prospect Adam Loewen. I hope that the American hitters can get some more runs across the plate.