Canada Gets Bounced From WBC

Two days after North America's team signed Terrell Owens, Canada gets bounced from the World Baseball Classic. This was somewhat of a surprise, as the Canadians looked pretty good against the Americans, and they were expected to get past Italy and possibly challenge / knock off Venezuela.

Sunday and Monday has not been kind to the host nations. First, the favored Mexican team was upset by Australia; not enough just to lose in front of the home crowd - they were embarrassed in a game called after 8 innings by mercy rule. 8 Mexican pitchers combined to give up a WBC record 22 hits and 17 runs. I think they might even have brought in a couple of ball boys to toss a couple of innings. Mexico is really in bad shape here, they are forced to play an elimination game against South Africa with a depleted bullpen.

Sixth inning call to the bullpen."Yeah, I'm almost ready."

Monday morning started off with me waking up to see Japan losing the top spot in Pool A to Korea in a pitchers' dual. This game was what I was expecting out of Asia's top two squads, but I am somewhat confused about the scheduling of this game. I had thought the format of pool play in this tournament was double elimination, and in double elimination formats - the team advancing from the losers' bracket must beat the winners' bracket team twice to take the top spot. Maybe I am just being selfish, hoping DiceK blows out his arm before the MLB season.

Monday evening saw Don Cherry and his awesome outfit throw out the first pitch at the Sky Dome in Toronto, then saw the no name Italians make spaghetti O's out of our neighbors to the north.

I know I am going to disappoint some of you people, I do not have any new updates on the state of Taiwanese baseball. As far as I know, no one has been machine gunned while standing outside making a phone call. Yet.

However, I did do a quick search on the Chinese American short stop Raymond Chang. This Fort Wayne Baseball site has a nice article about him. I'll be cheering for this kid to make it to the bigs.

Update: Mexico has pulled ahead of South Africa 6-2, in the top of the seventh. El Tri proceeded to give back one run in the bottom of the frame. Mexico has used 3 pitchers thus far (the starter did his part, pitched 6 strong innings giving up only 2 runs), they are praying that their bullpen can hold up. Or maybe they're pulling a Team Korea strategy, tanking early and winning the last game for the pool.