Todd4State
03-19-2017, 02:36 AM
Tonight was a HUGE win for the USA. We knocked off the DR who was the defending champion. Our starting pitching was quite as sharp as it was in the last round, but Drew Smyly did a great job against Venezuela which started King Felix and had a lineup with Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, Jose Altuve, and Roughned Odor in it. And had Salvador Perez not been injured he would have been there as well. That game went pretty much how I thought it would- King Felix being dominant until we got his pitch count up and then we win the game off of their bullpen. And sure enough Adam Jones and Eric Hosmer lit up Hector Rodon.
The loss to Puerto Rico was disappointing- but I figured we were going to have to beat the DR win or lose anyway so that game really didn't matter that much to me in the grand scheme of things. Marcus Stroman had a rough night- and that's ultimately what cost us that game. We made a nice comeback including Brandon Crawford's triple to get the tying run 90 feet away but Leyland decided to not pinch hit Ian Kinsler for some reason and Josh Harrison struck out.
The game tonight against the DR was the most exciting to me. Danny Duffy was not quite on- like he usually is against the Cardinals. He allowed 2 runs in the first and got in a MAJOR jam in the second but one of the keys to the win was he got out of that jam unscathed somehow. And then he gave us another couple of innings of scoreless ball which were huge. On top of that the USA tied the game until Giancarlo Stanton launched one off of the building in left field and gave the US a 4-2 lead. That didn't surprise me since I saw that the Dominican's were throwing Ervin Santana. This game was the opposite of the Venezuela game for me in that regard because the last thing I wanted to have happen was the DR to get a lead with their bullpen- so mission accomplished there. Pat Neshek came in and got out of another huge jam as well- and I disagreed with Leyland pulling him. I would have let him go one more and then bring in Clippard rather than having Clippard go for two innings. I will say that move led to an amazing catch by Adam Jones off of Manny Machado which has to go down as one of the best catches in baseball history. And probably the best in the WBC thus far. Sam Dyson and Luke Gregerson were lights out in relief and got some tough hitters out to preserve the win and Andrew McCutcheon added some runs with a double off of Colome which gave us some breathing room.
The tournament changes now because we have to play Japan and it's winner goes to the championship and loser goes home. The WBC is a big deal there and they have won this tournament twice. So far this round they have defeated a pretty good Cuban team twice and the Netherlands in extra innings. Their starting pitching has struggled some this WBC so far, but their bullpen has been really good. It should be a pretty good game.
The loss to Puerto Rico was disappointing- but I figured we were going to have to beat the DR win or lose anyway so that game really didn't matter that much to me in the grand scheme of things. Marcus Stroman had a rough night- and that's ultimately what cost us that game. We made a nice comeback including Brandon Crawford's triple to get the tying run 90 feet away but Leyland decided to not pinch hit Ian Kinsler for some reason and Josh Harrison struck out.
The game tonight against the DR was the most exciting to me. Danny Duffy was not quite on- like he usually is against the Cardinals. He allowed 2 runs in the first and got in a MAJOR jam in the second but one of the keys to the win was he got out of that jam unscathed somehow. And then he gave us another couple of innings of scoreless ball which were huge. On top of that the USA tied the game until Giancarlo Stanton launched one off of the building in left field and gave the US a 4-2 lead. That didn't surprise me since I saw that the Dominican's were throwing Ervin Santana. This game was the opposite of the Venezuela game for me in that regard because the last thing I wanted to have happen was the DR to get a lead with their bullpen- so mission accomplished there. Pat Neshek came in and got out of another huge jam as well- and I disagreed with Leyland pulling him. I would have let him go one more and then bring in Clippard rather than having Clippard go for two innings. I will say that move led to an amazing catch by Adam Jones off of Manny Machado which has to go down as one of the best catches in baseball history. And probably the best in the WBC thus far. Sam Dyson and Luke Gregerson were lights out in relief and got some tough hitters out to preserve the win and Andrew McCutcheon added some runs with a double off of Colome which gave us some breathing room.
The tournament changes now because we have to play Japan and it's winner goes to the championship and loser goes home. The WBC is a big deal there and they have won this tournament twice. So far this round they have defeated a pretty good Cuban team twice and the Netherlands in extra innings. Their starting pitching has struggled some this WBC so far, but their bullpen has been really good. It should be a pretty good game.