Open WBC Remaining Round 1 Games Thread
by ThundaPC on Mar 11, 2009 1:11 AM PDT
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PrintAustralia just ran over Mexico to the point where the mercy rule had to come into play after the bottom of the 8th inning (Score: 17-7). I think it's about time for a new thread, probably for the rest of the games in Round 1.
3/10 Update: How bout them Netherlands? Wish I could have seen that game.
3/11 Update: Well, wow.
========================== Schedule ==========================
Monday 3/9
Pool A - Korea 1, Japan 0
Pool C - Italy 6, Canada 2
Pool D - Netherlands 1, Puerto Rico 3
Pool B - Mexico 14, South Africa 3
Tuesday 3/10
Pool C - Italy 1, Venezuela 10
Pool D - Dominican Republic 1, Netherlands 2 (11)
Pool B - Cuba 5, Australia 4
Wednesday 3/11
2:00pm PDT --- Pool D - Netherlands vs. Puerto Rico [ESPN2]
3:30pm PDT --- Pool C - Venezuela vs. United States [MLB Network]
7:00pm PDT --- Pool B - Mexico vs. Australia [MLB Network]
Thursday 3/12
6:00pm PDT --- Pool B - (Mexico/Australia Winner) vs Cuba [MLB Network]
============================================================
Pool A - Korea (1), Japan (2)
Pool B - Cuba
Pool C - Venezuela, United States
Pool D - Netherlands, Puerto Rico
============================================================
Round 2 begins Saturday March 14th at 10:00am PDT.
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Japan lineup is due for a shakeup.
I can see Fukudome getting benched.
Favor the Bold
Skewered on the Paths.
Running gaffe by the Koreans.
Favor the Bold
Stoopid base running.
Koreans keep running out of their innings.
Favor the Bold
Bad baserunning or good D?
I only have gameday. I guess with no force on, they should stay home unless they know they’re going to first. Baserunning decisions in those kinds of situations kind of baffle me.
Ran on contact with no outs.
And they’re running with their heads down.
Favor the Bold
PH Ogasawara
Orange Dolphins, really?
Favor the Bold
Oh No Joh.
Hope not filled of I am.
Favor the Bold
Ask and I shall receive.
Wait.
Favor the Bold
Why the heck did they bunt there?
That’s insane.
Stupid and illogical.
You’re much more likely to score with a runner on first and one out than a runner on second and two outs. Also, Ichiro can steal and he’ll likely be safe. Just a stupid, stupid, nonsensical move by Japan.
Yesterday's Pants
A blog-thingy about the Mariners and stuff.
Yeah, honestly, I'm not a fan of the play.
But I can see where they’re coming from too.
Favor the Bold
I see where they're coming from too. It's "conventional" baseball wisdom...it's just not the right play.
Yesterday's Pants
A blog-thingy about the Mariners and stuff.
Butcher boy would have been nice.
But I’ll live with the sac bunt.
Favor the Bold
If an MLB manager had done that in a similar situation
I would fired him. Maybe not that day, but it would’ve come up when I fired him.
It's an entirely justifiable play.
You won’t have many MLB friends.
Favor the Bold
Really?
Hang on, I have to find the win expectancy guide…
Ah:
Home team, 8th inning, runner on first, one out, -1: 31.7%
Home team, 8th inning, runner on second, two outs: 26.3%
You just can’t give up outs in that situation.
Sorry
That reads more harsh than I probably wanted it to.
But bunting forces you into a situation where you need a hit to score Ichiro. If you don’t bunt, you just need (in sequence) a single and a productive out to score him… or he can steal second. I don’t think (and I don’t know Japan well enough to say this) that the #2 hitter would get doubled up in that situation, so I don’t see what bunting accomplishes, other than waste an out.
A move that makes you significantly more likely to lose is a justifiable play?
Maybe it’s justifiable to old school thinkers who don’t understand baseball probability in the MLB, but there’s a reason the successful teams don’t bunt in situations like that anymore.
Yesterday's Pants
A blog-thingy about the Mariners and stuff.
Like abelard
I’m not trying to be rude here, but I can see how it would come off as such.
Yesterday's Pants
A blog-thingy about the Mariners and stuff.
So I'm sorry if it offends.
I should finish my thoughts before posting.
Yesterday's Pants
A blog-thingy about the Mariners and stuff.
I blame the fact
that I’ve been up for almost 24 hours straight.
I’m not strongly against bunting (IIRC, the Book established that it’s good to occasionally bunt randomly, just to avoid being completely predictable) but I don’t know why they wouldn’t steal in that situation, or let him hit away.
Yeah, I'm not completely against the bunt.
Just….95% against it?
Yesterday's Pants
A blog-thingy about the Mariners and stuff.
Murata Bomb Kindly Requested.
Favor the Bold
Michihiro Ogasawara.
Hit or grow your beard back.
Favor the Bold
Not a pretty win either.
They should have won by 3 or 4 runs if they didn’t keep running out of good plays.
Favor the Bold
I have no idea
how Japan didn’t score a run off Jung Bong.
Well, about time for me to get some sleep.
I was going to say “hurry up and get this over with,” but in the time it took me to type the subject line Japan made the last out.
I second that
I need sleep.
At least I got to see Darvish.
These sixth games seem pretty pointless
Japan and Korea are now 1-1 in head-to-head play, and if it was a true double-elimination format, there would be a rubber match. Choosing Korea as the top seed from the pool seems a bit arbitrary, but I guess it’s an arbitrary decision that everyone agrees with at the beginning, so whatever.
More importantly, since the Pool B sixth game is after the Pool A sixth game, if someone would rather play Korea than Japan, it would be to their advantage to lose the Pool B sixth game. And any game where a team has an incentive to lose isn’t really a game worth playing, in my book.
I would rather just have them play the first five games, give the top seed to the undefeated team, and then play full-on double elimination in the final round.
"And any game where a team has an incentive to lose isn’t really a game worth playing, in my book."
That was most of last season for us
by Graham MacAree on Mar 9, 2009 10:47 AM PDT up reply actions
I suppose so
It seems like teams would be much more willing to tank one game where they certainly gain their advantage by losing than they would be willing to tank a lot of games when the payoff is uncertain even if they do lose. Also, MLB franchises have long-term goals to keep in mind whereas WBC teams essentially have only short-term goals.
It’s a matter of degree. Thankfully, the incentive for tanking in MLB seems to be much smaller than in the NBA.
It's because of the number of players on the field, honestly
in MLB, not only are the players drafted relatively far from the majors, you need ~20 players to field a competitive team. In the NBA, the players drafted contribute immediately, and the disparity between the top talents in the draft and the average ones is much higher than in MLB.
NBA teams have a huge incentive to tank sheerly because of the way that basketball works, as opposed to MLB.
I'm ok with the Pool A sixth game being so early
because teams in the Asian Pool are going to have to travel across an ocean in order to play the next round. To have them all end at the same time and have the second round played soon after would probably harm the traveling teams.
by Two Rs and Two Ls on Mar 9, 2009 10:57 AM PDT up reply actions
You could just not play it
I agree that there are scheduling problems with trying to play them simultaneously, but you can avoid that by not playing the last game. I suppose they figure they would lose money in the deal, but I think that they could make a lot of that up by playing full-on double elimination in the championship round.
It’s not really a huge deal, it’s just something that I would do differently.
I agree. They could have just scrapped the sixth game flown Japan to San Diego after their first two wins, but i guess
they wanted to have some sort of “championship” game at each site. Really made no sense since it’s a double elimination and if Japan won, Korea would have two losses, but still advance.
Shouldn’t make much of a difference though. Cuba and Japan were probably gonna meet up anyway in Game 3, in San Diego. With the loser having to play an elimination game in Game 5. Now they will likely play in Game 1. With the loser having to play two games in the loser bracket.
I would agree with the notion that having a 6th game is pretty silly to begin with.
It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Maybe some Marketing sense, because the more you can get Japan and Korea to play each other, the greater the rivalry, but whatever.
by Two Rs and Two Ls on Mar 9, 2009 11:04 AM PDT up reply actions
I just realized that I'd be an asshole if I lived 10 minutes away from Petco and missed the WBC for the second time.
So today I bought some cheap park pass tickets for Japan vs. Whoever Wins Pool B. I’m hoping for Cuba or Mexico. Either way would be awesome. The Cubans always have a fun team to watch, and the Mexicans should draw a great crowd in San Diego.
I wanted to go to the games in LA
but the prices were absurd. I may still try and scalp depending upon who ends up there.
You know what? Fuck you Sports Gods, fuck you.
I just bought $15 tickets that get you into the park but you don't get seats.
I imagine I would spend most of my time walking around anyway, so I figure this is the way to go. I don’t need to see every pitch as much as I just want to see the pageantry of the whole thing.
It appears not.
Petco has the big “Park at the Park” feature, where there’s a grassy area with a T-ball field and places to lay out a blanket and watch the game from way out past center field, so they always sells really cheap tickets. I think it’s $5 during the regular season. The view sucks, but you also have access to the rest of the park if you want to walk around.
I'm thinking about going to Altitude on top of the Marriot to watch the games
you can see the whole field except CF and RF from up there, it’s really nice.
Plus if there’s no cover on club nights, there won’t be cover in the middle of the day.
I think the Cuba vs Japan game is gonna be really really good..
However, they shoud break up the teams more.. Stick like Pool A winner with Pool C winner.. and Pool B runner up, and Pool D runner up, so you get some new matchups…
Hope for Korea vs. Mexico like I got last time at Angel Stadium
it was terrifying, to be honest.
Mexico playing in SoCal
would be frightening no matter the opponent.
You know what? Fuck you Sports Gods, fuck you.
So....gameday's working for you?
It’s blank when I check that game – the Italy/Canada game isn’t working either. Damn.
It might require flash...
My computer here at work doesn’t have functional flash and I’m getting all of the background graphics, but the gameday app itself doesn’t show up in the center of the screen.
Same boat - no flash
What I meant was that the box scores on mlb.com aren’t updating – and, in the case of the Ned/PR game, don’t show up at all.
I almost started my message with
“I’m 99% sure of the answer, but…”
Looked like a fastball.
And it should have been a single, but he hit it to Bernie Williams, so it was a double.
It sounds like Jesse Ventura is one of the commentators in this Netherland/PR game.
You can't hide from the omnipresent eye.
He was a member of 2001 Tacoma Rainiers
and as such, I cannot hate him. But yeah, that late HR to win a game for the Rangers was a gut punch all right.
You watch Halman attempt to hit breaking balls, and you just wonder how he'll
ever come close to being a ML player.
I have to admit
I’ve been really rooting for the under dog teams to win.
Except in that first Korea game where I was just impressed with how Korea looked. I still felt bad for their opponent.
You know what? Fuck you Sports Gods, fuck you.
Wasn't he just a fill-in guy with them?
Used to do a little bit of everything locally, including the occasional Tacoma Rockets WHL games back in the day on KSTW.
His Wiki says he was a part of FSN Northwest.
So he probably did a lot of different sports. And it says he was a commentator for the Blue Jays, which I didn’t know.
Yup.
He was FSN, and was more than happy to get a play by play job with the Fish as there looked to be no openings in Seattle any time soon.
by msb on Mar 9, 2009 6:55 PM PDT up reply actions
I suddenly have the urge to see the Netherlands win the WBC.
Because they are the underdog that can pull it off.
I was just going to bring them up
I’m not sure about how their run prevention units stack up, but I think that Australia has a good-sized advantage in offense over the Dutch.
So far I approve of the new mlb video player that is in beta
The video quality is sexy compared to what I’m used to out of the 800k windows media player feeds from last year.
Liddi double
I was just looking at this kid’s numbers at Wisconsin. Not so great, strikes out all the time. But, he’s only 20.
Mets fans are suiciding with how awful
some of their players have looked in the WBC.
You know what? Fuck you Sports Gods, fuck you.
For all of the complaining that I do about baseball broadcasts in general...
…I have to say that this is basically just how I want to watch baseball. The announcing isn’t inspired by any means, but they are concentrating on the game at hand and not hammering us over the head with some predetermined storylines. (Except for the underdog story line, but even that has seemed fairly innocuous.) There aren’t endless cross-promotions for some show that I’m not interested in and they are basically just showing us the game. No weird noise-making 3D graphics, no overlay graphics to show me how far off first base the lead runner is, no ridiculous tiny sample size statistics. I love it.
by ubelmann on Mar 9, 2009 6:14 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs
And they've been completely unbiased.
This game has been so exciting in part because they’ve let the game dictate the emotion.
You can't hide from the omnipresent eye.
They seem to know a lot about the non-MLB players, which is nice.
Even if they’re just reading off a sheet, it’s nice to get some background info on these players. Particularly the Dutch.
How long can these kids go like this without allowing a run?
You can't hide from the omnipresent eye.
I wish they had a radar gun
These pitches seem extremely hittable to me.
There is just no fucking way they are going to do it again.
No fucking way.
You can't hide from the omnipresent eye.
Man the Italian pitcher just got hosed against Bay.
At least two strikes got called balls.
~Till the Halo burns out...
It was fun while it lasted
Who is the DR starting tomorrow?
What the Netherlands have done, regardless if they lose this game or not, is nothing short of remarkable.
You can't hide from the omnipresent eye.
Is this feed legit?
It seems like MLB network would …not be pleased…for this to be going out for free.
That was a nice throw to get the runner at the plate
They just need some offense to go with their defense. Holding this lineup to 3 runs over 8 innings isn’t anything to be ashamed of.
Huh
I don’t remember it even coming up, but I’m assuming that he wants to stay in camp and fight for a job. It seems to me like he’s a lock for 4th OF, but theoretically he’s competing with Morse/LaHair/Prentice Redman. And in reality I hope to god he’s not actually competing with them. He would probably make the Netherlands team better though, shame.
Kind of unlucky for them...
There basically seem to be 9 “top” teams and Canada wound up as the loser in the group with 3 of those teams. That’s not to say that Australia or the Netherlands (heck, maybe even Italy at this point) couldn’t still surprise someone and advance, but if they could play some sort of hypothetical round-robin best-of-seven competition, I would guess that the US, Canada, Venezuela, Japan, Korea, Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic would emerge as the clear top 9.
Cantu with a wild throw on routine play
If Mexico actually gets eliminated here, they’re going to be the laughing stock of baseball.
Their first loss was a 7-17 blowout against team Australia
And their second loss would be to team freakin’ South Africa. How the hell could you even go back to Mexico after that?
by JLC on Mar 9, 2009 7:38 PM PDT up reply actions
Meh
It’s baseball, not college basketball (where the #1 seeds can always beat the #16 seeds), two bad games shouldn’t make a laughing stock of anyone.
This has to be a hard place to pitch, too. In terms of blowout potential, I’d bet it’s right up there with Coors Field in the ’90s.
Considering the fan turnout and fervor with which these teams play
I get the impression that getting eliminated this early in the competition to South Africa and Australia would be very embarrassing.
by JLC on Mar 9, 2009 7:53 PM PDT up reply actions
Embarassing, sure...
…but I wouldn’t think that makes them “the laughing stock of baseball.”
I've never seen a laughing stock of anything
the term is kinda hyperbolic by design.
by JLC on Mar 9, 2009 8:02 PM PDT up reply actions
It's a little bizarre to see the pitcher throwing to the batter...
…and zero fans behind them. This must be a multi-purpose stadium.
Wow this game is completely the opposite of the last one.
BOOOOOOORRRRRRRIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGG
You can't hide from the omnipresent eye.
Huh, South Africa is hanging around in this game
This game doesn’t seem nearly as exciting as the score suggests it should be. I blame pitchers not throwing enough strikes and a stadium that makes the Al Davis Reconfigurable Hole seem like an intimate fan experience.
Hahaha
so that Pepsi add in the background is just a green screen? Funny!
Yep
And there he goes to actually get one, nice.
by appleshampoo on Mar 10, 2009 2:39 PM PDT up reply actions
Thanks for the link higher up
first live baseball I’ve seen in a long while
by Bearskin Rugburn on Mar 10, 2009 2:53 PM PDT up reply actions
So do they have other games as well?
This can potentially ruin my family and career and I am OK with that.
by Bearskin Rugburn on Mar 10, 2009 2:54 PM PDT up reply actions
Yeah just hit the main domain and there's a list.
Who knows how long it will be around though. Seems ripe for legal action/shutdown.
by appleshampoo on Mar 10, 2009 2:56 PM PDT up reply actions
Is Cervelli's mom sitting in the
broadcast booth or something?
by Bearskin Rugburn on Mar 10, 2009 3:04 PM PDT reply actions
Netherlands vs. DR on MLB Network
Tom STUIFBERGEN is pitching for team Nederlands. Awesome name.
Halman not starting in this game.
LOPEZ!!!
I’m not gonna lie but the WBC is giving me a small amount of hope that Lopez can sustain what he did in the second half last year. Even if it is irrational.
It'd be nice if I could finally direct my hatred at one of the two
I hated inconsistently oscillating between he and Yuni.
So USA vs Venezuela rematch
Will Felix be able to pitch again?
You know what? Fuck you Sports Gods, fuck you.
I think so
Need to wait a minimum of 3 days if a pitcher throws 50+ pitches, which Felix did on March 7th.
I thought it was 4 days.
Can’t seem to find where I read that though.
by appleshampoo on Mar 10, 2009 8:27 PM PDT up reply actions
It was 4 in 2006
Can’t find the 2009 link
by appleshampoo on Mar 10, 2009 8:35 PM PDT up reply actions
That kind of makes sense, too
You’re essentially allowed one “start” per round.
Here is the best I can find
The 2006 rules, which say that it is a minimum of 3 (not 4) days after throwing 50+ pitches. And then an article on rule changes, which ups the limits from 65/80/95 to 70/85/100 for rounds 1/2/3. I don’t see any mention of extending the 3-day waiting period to 4 days, though.
DR vs. Nederland
is available online, albeit in Spanish.
by shinallsrevenge on Mar 10, 2009 4:08 PM PDT reply actions
