The best lineup on earth has only 1 run with 3 hits… who says you can’t be romantic about baseball? (Yes, I know the US of A doesn’t really care about this tournament… but apparently the rest of the world does and they’re coming for Uncle Sam)
Serious note. How in the F do you have a guy like Nick Martinez on the USA squad as a starting pitcher? He has a career losing record and a 4.5 ERA. Took several years playing in Japan before he finally made it back as a reliever last year with a few spot starts. There had to been better options than this guy.
Like who? Some of the US born guys (like Sandoval tonight) figured they’d might as well play for an ancestral team vs. the US team…. If that thought process is already in effect, in addition to the pitchers who just aren’t ready because “it’s early” (ahem, Cole, JV, Scherzer)… and you have the situation that is the US rotation. Meanwhile, Luis Garcia has braids with Venezuelan national flag colors and is striking out all-stars without breaking a sweat… ETA: If this is going to be a real thing going forward, which MLB is completely supportive of, they should have it mid-season (in lieu of the all-star break, etc.), have less MLB games that season, have it be at a single country with games everyday, and compel the best of the best to play. The World Cup has even more lucrative professional leagues to compete with and yet they make that competition a true priority. The baseball version could get there in 15-20 years from now with this sort of trajectory.
It's not that we couldn't get a JV, Sherzer, Cole-tier pitcher, but not even a Logan Webb, or a Blake Snell, or a Brandon Woodruff tier guy? Sad state when you trot out a lineup like that and your best starter is a washed up Adam Wainwright.
Unfortunately because I am in China now (Japan last week), I have no idea what you linked because every damn thing is blocked by the Great Firewall. It’s gotten so much worse since I lived here. That said, the skies are much bluer!
This lineup was very poorly planned by Team USA considering the tie-breakers is runs allowed, not runs scored or run differential. That puts it on mostly on the pitchers. I guess they just thought this line-up was good enough to out-hit the opponent. They don't have a lot of wiggle run already giving up 11 in the last game.
They didn't "plan" to not having any pitching. The American players care as little about this as the fans do, and pitchers are all about meticulous prep for the season. The best didn't want any part of this tournament because it would interrupt that. For the hitters that play everyday, it's not really much different from ST games, so it's easier to get them on board. I don't really care, so I don't blame the players for not caring either. The rest of the world can have this tournament as far as I'm concerned. If we win cool, if we didn't even field a team that wouldn't bother me either.
Roki Sasaki from Japan is pretty sick. 21 of 66 pitches thrown against the Czech Republic clocked over 100 mph. He struck out 8 in 3 1/2 innings. The dude is only 21 years old and almost had 2 perfect games last season back to back. He was pulled for pitch count in the second game. He had a WHIP of .796 last season with 173 K against 23 walks. . For reference, Ohtani never got below .900 WHIP in the Japanese league. I'm assuming he will wait until 25 until he comes over so he can get PAID, since he isn't coming over this season.
I got confused as to who the “we” is referring to… as there’s a fair amount of Astros hitters and pitchers involved in this. Framber got held back… but Urquiddy, Garcia, Javier, Abreu, Nerris, Montero, Pressly, Blanco all playing as far as pitchers go. (So basically 60% of our starting rotation, and ALL of our stacked high leverage playoff bullpen guys) The rest of the US may not care about this, especially teams that don’t have a lot of international players, but the Astros lead the way in both total number of players involved and the quality of player involved (minus Blanco). The price of being a great team with a huge international base… but seems that Astros fans are going to need to keep tabs on team that advance simply by default.
The Japanese crowd passed around Ohtani's HR ball to take pictures and it was eventually politely returned back to person that caught it without any worry In America, that ball is as good as gone if you let someone else touch it
They have another pitcher that's supposed to be good as well. Yoshinobu Yamamoto who's 24 might be available next season. I think I heard his team will post him.
I don't get how Americans could not care less International team sports competitions are my favorites World Cup, Olympic basketball, this WBC I really don't get it
One issue i have with WBC is lots of teams seem to be filled with American born players. Hired guns so to speak
That's true in other sports as well. All the countries do it based off eligibility due to different reasons like dual citizenship, part of a commonwealth etc. The carribean countries get poached all the time.
I just looked at isreal's line up from todays game. None of them are born in Isreal. Great Britain's line up has 1 player born in GB. I understand you can be a citizen even though you arent born there, but this is stupid. The world cup is not this bad. WBC needs less teams instead of more fake teams
