Wow
Dave · March 10, 2009 at 6:31 pm · Filed Under Mariners
The Netherlands just beat the Dominican Republic… again. The powerful D.R. team is out of the tournament, as a Dutch team led by Eugene Kingsale and Randall Simon advance.
Wow. This is… wow.
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This would have been more sweet if A-Rod were on the team still…
Anyone worthy of a closer ML look? Or is this just a case of (some combination of) sample size, luck, national pride, and DR overconfidence coming in to play?
That game was so awesome. Kingsale looking like the goat, then the hero.
Or is this just a case of (some combination of) sample size, luck, national pride, and DR overconfidence coming in to play?
Their pitching coach is supposed to be pretty good.
Their pitching coach is supposed to be pretty good.
*Googles…*
“Blyleven”
…
Oh.
Okay, that’s it… I need one of those sweet orange hats.
Tommy Lasorda put a voodoo hex on the DR to ensure no one gets in the way of America’s trophy.
More WBC coverage!
The WBC had me interested this go around. The fact that the baseball has been very good, has me hooked. I watched both games between the Netherlands and the Dominican Republic, as well as Japan vs. China and US vs. Canada. All have been playoff quality games, with good fans, and mostly exciting play.
One of the Netherlands guys is an M’s prospect… Halman. Gotta cheer for the underdogs.
It’s the Curse of A-Rod!
And to think, there are people out there who hate and / or think the WBC sucks.
And to think, there are people out there who hate and / or think the WBC sucks.
I have to admit, I’ve been on the fence. Watching this game, and watching Team Nederland celebrate like they won ten World Series at once, has gotten me off the fence and onto the bandwagon.
Australia takes a 2 run lead on a hit by a kid who looks like he’s about a sophomore in high school. 6-1 and he weighs 155. I love this WBC stuff.
I’m here in Puerto Rico and the walk out of Hiram Bithorn stadium was dead silent after both games.
I’m trying to get some netherlands goodies to get signed by Halman but everything they are selling here is either dominican or puerto rican (which I’ve already gotten my PR shirt signed by Beltran and Ivan Rodriguez).
Either way I’ll link you guys to some pics from the stadium if you want from tonight’s game
.
Australia and the Netherlands are like the little engines that could. After Australia came from behind and blew out Mexico I went to their major newspaper sites (the Australian and the Telegraph) only to find the story buried – below cricket, below football, below rugby (league and union), below soccer, below the Olympics (Olympics? yes, summer and winter), below racing (car and horse)…. under “International” in one paper and “Other sports” in the other. And they both just reprinted the same AFP story: apparently they couldn’t send one reporter between them.
Well, even if they don’t love their baseball team, we do. Go Oz! Go Orange!
And the first now will later be last…
On second thought, I like “The Curse of A-Rod” better!
It’s too bad Halman sucked. Otherwise, awesome.
That was baseball at it’s best! hats off to former Mariner & Rainier (2002) Eugene Kingsdale for his great hit after his misplay on the field.
Endy leading off and playing center for Venzuela also very impressive, where Venzuela be without it’s M’s?
I couldn’t beleive that the DR couldn’t score at least 5 runs against the Netherlands!?!
Seriously though, watch Japan when Darvish is pitching. That guy has amazing stuff.
The Dutch newspapers, at least, seem to be going crazy about their baseball team’s win. The sports section of the Netherlands’ largest newspaper De Telegraaf (whose circulation of 719,000 would rank fifth in the US) has “ORANJE FLIKT ‘T WEER” as its lead, with “Miami de volgende halte voor stuntende honkbalploeg” as its sub-heading. I’ve used my non-existent Dutch skills (and the fact that the other Dutch papers are only carrying lame wire stories) to conclude that De Telegraaf actually sent a reporter to cover the WBC. Good on them! God, I love honkbal!
I changed my cable status last night so I could watch this game. Wow that was insane. This is so what the WBC needed.
Halman hit a double two nights ago in the first, though he’s struck out, what 6-7 times in 9 at-bats? He needs to work on that free swing of his, but he does have power when he connects. Maybe round 2 will be better for him.
My Catholic family would not approve.
My favorite statistic from this game:
2009 salaries
DR – $83 million+
NL – $400,000
This obviously needs to become the next Mastercard commercial.
I wonder if Beltre is even MORE annoyed that he wasn’t allowed to go. I would be.
Meanwhile Canada falls into its familiar trope of soul-searching angst. Not what it would be if they’d lost at a sport that actually matters (ie hockey) but the cognitive dissonance of beating the US and then being knocked out by Italy leads inevitably to questioning the national character.
In 29 innings against DR and Puerto Rico, the Dutch pitchers gave up a total of six runs, nearly all of which were after late inning walks in tight games. Why doesn’t Bert Blyleven have a major league pitching coach job?
As to the WBC itself, I have no objection to it as a concept and attended two games last time. It’s fun. The problem is that it really interferes with spring training, particularly for teams that sign a lot of international players, like the M’s. We have a new manager who hasn’t seen his left and right fielders, second baseman, catcher and number one starter play for him in person yet, and all their teams made the second round, so he’s got another week before any of them show up, at least.
“Miami de volgende halte voor stuntende honkbalploeg”
Babblefish translates that as:
Miami the next halte for stunting baseball plough
You’re assigning the credit for that to the coach? How long has he had with these pitchers?
Felix was in camp prior to departing to train with Venezuela; he even pitched in a game; Silva, Chavez, and Lopez (and Halman) were all in Peoria prior to leaving for the WBC also. Obviously they’re missing time with the team, but it’s inaccurate to say Wakamatsu “hasn’t seen” them play. Only Ichiro and Joh have missed spring training altogether.
Or like me, just aren’t interested.
The problem is that it really interferes with spring training, particularly for teams that sign a lot of international players, like the M’s.
Too bad this excuse only works for this season.
We have a new manager who hasn’t seen his left and right fielders, second baseman, catcher and number one starter play for him in person yet
If he already knows that they will have these positions, how important is it for him to see them play in person for a couple innings at a time in spring training? If I was Wakamatsu, I’d find it much more critical to see and evaluate the people who are on the bubble, so to speak. So the catcher might be an issue, but not really the rest. And funny thing, Ryan Rowland-Smith is in camp, as is Balentien (belatedly).
I just realized how incredibly pointless Game 6 is in these pools. Give the 1 seed to the team that didn’t have to go through the loser’s bracket, and call it good. Or am I mistaken?
Well, I’m happy to see Balentien has made it. Thanks, Mike!
i’ve been reading your posts for a couple months now.
i’m from the Netherlands and played on the same club as Greg Halman did.
Toooo funny how you guys translate all the dutch words xD
but like the rest of the world we never imagined that we would win against DR… TWICE
GOOOO Netherlands
That’s too bad. You’ve missed some great baseball games, and some great fans/atmosphere.
Well, you’re sort of right, but the winner of Game 6 is by definition the #1 seed in the next round. So a team that went through the loser’s bracket can still end up #1. And if we eliminated that game we would’ve missed out on the second Korea-Japan game, which was epic. Or tonight’s Venezuela-U.S. rematch, which could be great also — which leads to something interesting: if Venezuela wins that game, they’ll have three wins (and the #1 seed) and the U.S. will only have two, but one of those two wins will be over Venezuela. PR and the Netherlands are in the same situation in the other game tonight. So depending on how you like the match-ups with the seeds coming out of the other pools, game 6 makes a lot of difference. If the US loses tonight, it faces the winner of PR-Neth; if it wins, it faces the loser. Or look at the Mexico-Aus-Cuba pool: if Cuba lose the final game they play Korea next; if they win it, the face Japan (in a rematch of the last WBC final).
At least, I think that’s how it works. I need more coffee…
Thanks for dropping by, Greef! We’d love to hear about what it was like playing with Halman, and the state of baseball in the Netherlands more generally. I heard Halman was the league MVP at age 18 or so. He will be an all-star if he figures out the strike zone at all. Also, how much buzz is the WBC generating in the Netherlands right now? Are people talking about it on the news and in the papers who normally never think about baseball? The Netherlands’ run this year reminds me a little bit of the 1995 Mariners’ run, which made the entire Pacific Northwest go crazy about baseball for the first time – myself included. That season made me fall in love with baseball when I was a little boy, and I’d be overjoyed if it did something similar for the children and kids-at-heart in the Netherlands. Like Roy Campanella said, “you need to be a man to play this game, but you also need a lot of little boy in you too.”
And if we eliminated that game we would’ve missed out on the second Korea-Japan game, which was epic.
I guess it seems a bit silly to me that there was a clear-cut reason to seed Japan over Korea, but now we have a situation where Japan has beaten Korea so badly that the game didn’t even go 9 innings and Korea just barely beat Japan, so Korea is considered the top seed.
If more games are desirable, they could add in a provisional seventh game to break ties like that, but as it stands the seeding really isn’t that important and the sixth game of pool play is pretty useless.
I get how it works, but it seems pointless in a lot of cases. For example, Japan beat Korea when it mattered, but both were already in when they played the second game, so it wasn’t as big a deal. Go read the article about US vs VEN at the WBC site, and it sounds like both teams are just glad they’re in the next round. The way it is now, there could be another rematch between Japan and Korea, this time in the finals (or semi-finals?). That would be epic, but the second time they played just didn’t matter, so I couldn’t get excited for it. Also, keep in mind the MLB players probably don’t need the extra work, especially the pitchers. But, it is more revenue, I suppose.
Yeah, I’d love to hear more about Dutch baseball (either in the home country or in the Caribbean) and how the WBC is being perceived in the Netherlands at the moment.
Not to stereotype too much, but the Dutch seem to have a fondness (and a knack) for the eccentric and the unlikely, and a genius for pulling a lot out of what seems to be almost nothing, whether it be inventing land out of nowhere (or at least out of an ocean) or Ajax and “totaalvoetbal.”
And yeah, I totally get where you’re coming from wrt game 6. It’s probably true that in cases where there isn’t a national rivalry underlying the match (as was the case with Japan-Korea) neither team is going to be working all that hard, because keeping pitchers healthy and rested is probably more important than who you face in round 2.
I love online translation:
Am I crazy or is it possible this exhibition game between the Giants and Team Japan could be a really interesting game? I doubt it’s going to happen (I have no idea what the Giants have been doing with their pitchers), but I’d love to see Ichiro face Lincecum. Two guys who each seem to be too small to even do what they do, let alone excel the way they have. Ah, well, there’s those three home games against the Giants in late May to look forward to, so I may even have a chance to see that match-up in person. (Lincecum’s homecoming: there’s something for the sportswriters.)
Twins fan here. Blyleven, as you probably know, is the Twins’ color announcer, which is probably a more enticing job than the grind of being a full-time pitching coach. But as the Twins blogs are buzzing right now, he might get some calls about it, and maybe he’ll accept. As someone who loved Blyleven as a player but can’t stomach him as an announcer, I’m all for it.
Great stuff! At a time when a lot of people just don’t have disposable income lying around to attend games in person, I think stories like this do a lot toward continuing to grow the sport on an international level.
Besides, it’s always fun to root for the underdogs…GO ORANGE!
After the career he had, I’m also surprised that ole’ Bert hasn’t had more calls for a job to go coach a major league pitching staff somewhere.
Then again, he wouldn’t be able to circle any fans’ heads anymore.
Classic:
Big Papi giving Yogi a run for his money as a quote machine, there.
Ah, well, there’s those three home games against the Giants in late May to look forward to, so I may even have a chance to see that match-up in person. (Lincecum’s homecoming: there’s something for the sportswriters
Don’t forget Randy Johnson as well
I think you’re on to something there SASS, think of how many pointless games there are in a Major league season. We could cut that down from 162 to maybe 30-40 tops. Then think of all those pointless 5 and 7 games series we have in the playoffs.
If the World Baseball classic is going to determine the best national team in the world in a total of 12 games, at the most for the winner, then surely the major leagues can determine a World Series winner in 50 games tops.
Or maybe the part of the motivation is playing the games for the sake of the game, and giving the fans something to watch.
I think baseball does a fantastic job of sorting out good teams from bad ones over 162 (or, 154 games).
WBC is what it is. It’s really fun and a BLAST to watch. I’m a huge fan of the Olympics, so the WBC works for me. A little bit of fun nationalism is great. I root for the underdogs (maybe next time, South America!) too.
What’s been cool is that everyone looks like they’re having fun out there. It really has exceeded my expectations.
One of the morning DJs on the Victoria, B.C. radio station I listen to put the results of this game into perspective, “That’s like Japan beating Canada in hockey.”
Actually it’s more like Trinidad and Tobago beating Canada in curling.
Hot damn. Ichiro did face Lincecum and it came out a tie — one broken bat grounder to second for an out, one walk. That’s perfect: it sets up a rematch in the regular season when Lincecum should pitch most of the game (three PAs for Ichiro at least, anyway). Man, I am definitely buying a ticket as soon as I can be fairly sure how the Giants rotation order will be working in May. Maybe I should just buy tickets to the whole series right now; as others have noted, there’s the chance RJ will be starting one of those games as well.