2013 World Baseball Classic Thread

[Lester Freamon]

Was also wondering... Now that Jurickson Profar has joined the Dutch for the Championship round, what might this mean for Schoop. I'm assuming that Profar will play 2B with Simmons staying at SS. Would Schoop play 3B with Xander Bogaerts moving to the bench, would one of them displace Andruw Jones at DH? Curious to see.

Also, Santana just homered for DR. Right choice for DR not to bench him. I'm guessing that the winner of this game plays Netherlands and the loser plays Japan? This one is shaping up as another great WBC game.

[NewOrioleWork]

Was also wondering... Now that Jurickson Profar has joined the Dutch for the Championship round, what might this mean for Schoop. I'm assuming that Profar will play 2B with Simmons staying at SS. Would Schoop play 3B with Xander Bogaerts moving to the bench, would one of them displace Andruw Jones at DH? Curious to see.

Also, Santana just homered for DR. Right choice for DR not to bench him. I'm guessing that the winner of this game plays Netherlands and the loser plays Japan? This one is shaping up as another great WBC game.

Not sure about Schoop.

But for your other query, yeah, since PR lost they play Japan; DR plays Netherlands. I'm crossing my fingers for a Japan/DR finals, it'll be a great matchup and they're the team most likely to actually give the DR a loss in this damn tournament.

[notyourbuddy]

There shall be a new WBC winner. Japan lost to Puerto Rico 3-1

[OrangeJerseys]

Viva Puerto Rico!

[Orioles4Life21]

The DR wins! I wonder how different things might be on the OH when the next WBC thread is made in 2017? :scratchchinhmm:

[scOtt]

The DR wins! I wonder how different things might be on the OH when the next WBC thread is made in 2017? :scratchchinhmm:

I'm hopeful of two or three rings by then.

[Lester Freamon]

The DR wins! I wonder how different things might be on the OH when the next WBC thread is made in 2017? :scratchchinhmm:

Great job by the DR. Their bullpen was the difference and Reyes and Cano were fabulous. I still believe that the US had the best roster in this tourney, but, this being baseball, the best roster won't always win in these situations. I mean Nelson Figuero (PR) and Samuel Deduno (DR) pitched great and knocked Team USA out. In a best of 7 or even a best of 5 I don't see the starting pitching for the other countries matching up with the US - and the US didn't even have guys like Verlander, Price, Kershaw and Sabathia. There seems to be a lot of hand wringing about what the US can do to improve for 2017, but really, IMHO, the just need a bit better luck. I thought they put together a tremendous pitching staff, especially given the concerns all ML teams have about which pitchers can participate or not. What can you do? Kimbrel and Pestano simply imploded in the games against DR and PR, respectively. It happens. Certainly, they could have put together a better offensive group but they still had more then enough fire power to get it down.

I'll be looking forward to 2017 once again. Hopefully the tournament, overall, continues to pick up steam.