{"id":13518,"date":"2017-03-14T08:32:58","date_gmt":"2017-03-14T12:32:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=13518"},"modified":"2017-03-14T08:32:58","modified_gmt":"2017-03-14T12:32:58","slug":"wbc-round-1-review-and-round-2-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=13518","title":{"rendered":"WBC Round 1 Review and Round 2 Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/2017_wbc_logo.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13371\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-13371\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/2017_wbc_logo-300x100.png\" alt=\"2017_wbc_logo\" width=\"300\" height=\"100\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Some major surprises in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=13368\">round 1 of the<\/a>\u00a0World Baseball Classic (WBC). \u00a0Lets quickly review what happened and then make some educated guesses about Round 2.<\/p>\n<p>(quick links for the WBC:\u00a0 \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldbaseballclassic.com\/\">Official site here<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2017_World_Baseball_Classic\">wikipedia site<\/a>\u00a0here with schedules, and another <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2017_World_Baseball_Classic_rosters\">wiki site here with rosters<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>Here were my predictions for the four groups in Round 1:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Predictions for Advancers from Pool A: South Korea, Netherlands<\/li>\n<li>Predictions for Advancers from Pool B: Japan, Cuba<\/li>\n<li>Predictions for Advancers from Pool C: USA, DR.<\/li>\n<li>Predictions for Advancers from Pool D: Mexico, Venezuela<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Round 2 starts before round 1 ends, so this post will be slightly delayed waiting for the final Pool C\/D results, but my predictions for Round 2 will have already been written.<\/p>\n<p>Actual Results<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Pool A<\/strong>: Israel and Netherlands. \u00a0In a huge shock, hosts South Korea were surprised by Israel to open the tourney, then were blanked by a Netherlands team that may be a dark horse to win this thing. \u00a0Two games in and both the Netherlands and Israel were 2-0, ensuring advancement. \u00a0Korea beats Chinese Taipei to at least salvage 3rd place so they don&#8217;t have to re-qualify, but this is a huge upset for the former Runners-up. \u00a0Israel topped the Netherlands after both had already advanced, though there&#8217;s no real advantage to finishing 1st or 2nd.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pool B<\/strong>: Japan and Cuba. \u00a0The two favorites both advanced, though Cuba had to hold off a pesky Australia in the do-or-die game. \u00a0As might have been predicted, China finished dead last, scoring just one run in 3 games. \u00a0Japan scored 22 runs in three games to easily advance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pool C<\/strong>: went basically chalk, with the US and DR winning their opening games, Columbia securing 3rd place over doormats Canada and the DR beating USA in their big-time matchup. \u00a0However that tells little of the story; Columbia&#8217;s\u00a0<strong>Jose Quintana<\/strong> shut down the US team with nearly 6 no-hit innings and they needed extra innings to advance. \u00a0Then in the US-DR game, the USA took advantage of some sloppy fielding to take a commanding 5-0 lead in the game, only to watch our own <strong>Tanner Roark<\/strong> get battered around and then World Series hero\u00a0<strong>Andrew Miller<\/strong> cough up not one but two homers to lose the lead and the game 7-5. \u00a0Columbia hung tough with the DR, taking them to extra innings before caputulating and giving up 7 in the 10th to make the score look like a blowout. \u00a0The US finally broke out while destroying Canada, scoring 7 runs in the first two innings. \u00a0US and DR advance.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pool D<\/strong>: Italy kicked off the group with yet another stunning upset, rallying for 4 runs in the 9th to beat group favorite Mexico. \u00a0Meanwhile Puerto Rico put a beat-down on group favorite Venezuela, surprising me and shaking up the group. \u00a0Venezuela then beat Italy in a win-or-go-home game by the amazing score of 11-10 in extra innings, a game that featured massive swings and should be an instant classic. \u00a0Puerto Rico calmly advanced past Mexico, putting themselves in the drivers seat and sending the Mexicans home early. \u00a0I had Puerto Rico finishing third; instead they go 3-0 and top the group. \u00a0In the pool&#8217;s final game, Mexico saved some face and downed Venezeula, meaning all three teams finished with a meager 1-2 record. \u00a0Italy and Venezuela advanced to a &#8220;tiebreaker&#8221; game by virtue of being less awful in the pool than Mexico and headed to a playoff. \u00a0In the final 1st round game, Venezuela needed a 3-run rally in the 9th to surpass Italy and advance.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>Round 2 Predictions<\/strong><\/span>:<\/p>\n<p>Pool E: the two advancing teams from each of the Far East pools, hosted at the Tokyo Dome: Netherlands, Israel, Japan and Cuba.<\/p>\n<p>Israel already proved their mettle, though their decider against the Netherlands may not have had the same import had it been a win-or-go-home game. \u00a0I think on paper its still Japan and the Netherlands with the most talent. \u00a0Cuba advanced but seems to be the weakest of the bunch. \u00a0I&#8217;ll go with my gut and predict that <strong>Japan<\/strong> and the <strong>Netherlands<\/strong> advance, with the Netherlands beating Israel when it counts.<\/p>\n<p>Pool F: the two advancing teams from the Northern Hemisphere pools, hosted at Petco Park in San Diego: DR, USA, Puerto Rico, Venezuela<\/p>\n<p>The DR looks unstoppable and the USA was just an inning or two from beating the DR themselves. \u00a0Venezeula limped into the final round and seems like its just too old of a squad. \u00a0The big game will be US-Puerto Rico to see who joins the DR in San Diego. \u00a0I&#8217;m still not entirely convinced that the US will advance (since they never have before), but on paper they look so much better than Puerto Rico. \u00a0I&#8217;ll go <strong>DR<\/strong> and <strong>USA<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some major surprises in round 1 of the\u00a0World Baseball Classic (WBC). \u00a0Lets quickly review what happened and then make some educated guesses about Round 2. (quick links for the WBC:\u00a0 \u00a0Official site here, wikipedia site\u00a0here with schedules, and another wiki site here with rosters). Here were my predictions for the four groups in Round 1: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1583],"tags":[2972,1335,77],"class_list":["post-13518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-baseball-classic","tag-andrew-miller","tag-jose-quintana","tag-tanner-roark"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13518"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13542,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13518\/revisions\/13542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}