World Baseball Classic

I enjoyed watching the 2009 edition of the World Baseball Classic. I don't remember watching any of the inaugural event in 2006. This time around I watched every game the US played and parts of several games involving some of the other 15 teams competing. Watching David Wright get a walk off hit in the 9th inning to beat Puerto Rico and send the US team into the semifinals was up there with any baseball moment I have ever seen.

Unfortunately, as a fan rooting for the US team it became very apparent, very early that they would not win the tourney. In fact, given there horrible starting pitching and terrible game management it was a miracle they got as far as they did. It appears that the US treated this tournament as more of an All Star Game while the two teams in the final - Korea and Japan - treated it more like the World Series. The attitude and results go hand in hand.

In an All Star Game the job of the manager is to get every player into the game somehow. That explains why US manager Davey Johnson pinch hit for Curtis Granderson with Evan Longoria in the 8th inning with his team down by two runs and a man on 3rd base in the 8th inning against Japan. There is no other logical explanation for the switch. He took out a left handed power hitter, who could hit with the wind, and put in a right handed power hitter, who had to hit into the wind. That move made no baseball sense, Johnson must have simply been trying to get Longoria an at bat in the series.

The US starting pitching was atrocious and clearly overmatched in nearly every game. Roy Oswalt, Jake Peavy, Ted Lily and Jeremy Guthrie combined to give up 25 runs in 26.3 innings of work. That is an ERA of a whopping 8.54 for our starting pitching. You aren't going to win too many games with those numbers. If the US ever wants to win this thing it has to get it's starting pitchers going a few weeks earlier so they aren't still in stretch out mode during the tourney. That would make a huge difference in their results.

Still, I enjoyed watching players from different clubs all on the same team with the red, white and blue USA logo on their chests. It was clear the players involved enjoyed their experience and gave all they had for their country. I rooted passionately for everyone on the US team during the games with one exception. I just couldn't bring myself to root for Derek Jeter. The Red Sox fan in me is stronger than the baseball fan in me.

Mood: Patriotic

Song of the Day:

"She wants her nails painted black, she wants the toy in the cracker jack, she wants to ride the bull at the rodeo."

-Feel That Fire

Dierks Bentley