{"id":13561,"date":"2017-03-23T12:13:01","date_gmt":"2017-03-23T16:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=13561"},"modified":"2017-03-23T12:13:01","modified_gmt":"2017-03-23T16:13:01","slug":"wbc-wrap-up-usa-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=13561","title":{"rendered":"WBC Wrap-up: USA Wins!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"United<\/a>

Jones makes the catch of a lifetime for USA; photo via USAToday\u00a0(AP Photo\/Gregory Bull)<\/p><\/div>\n

KW in the previous comments pointed out that I picked against Puerto Rico in every round. \u00a0Yes I did. \u00a0I’m a sucker for pitching, and I just never thought PR’s pitching staff would take them all the way. \u00a0And in the end … it came down to pitching to decide the WBC.<\/p>\n

Here’s how the WBC ended up.<\/p>\n

(quick links for the WBC:\u00a0 \u00a0Official site here<\/a>, wikipedia site<\/a>\u00a0here with schedules, and another wiki site here with rosters<\/a>).<\/p>\n

In the semis: I predicted that the Netherlands and USA would advance<\/a>, with the Netherlands winning the whole thing. \u00a0So what happened?<\/p>\n

In the first semi: Puerto Rico and the Netherlands played a pretty entertaining game (side note: why the heck doesn’t\u00a0Wladimir Balentien<\/strong>\u00a0get a MLB contract?? \u00a0He’s destroyed Japanese pitching over the last several years and wasn’t exactly awful during his short stint in the MLB; perhaps he wants to stay over there. \u00a0But he’s a beast) that went to extra innings before Puerto Rico walked off with the 4-3 win (using the 11th inning placed runners rules, which certainly make for a quick end to games but seem … well a bit abrupt).<\/p>\n

In the other semi, the Nats own\u00a0Tanner Roark\u00a0<\/strong>(finally) got the start against previously undefeated (and, really, unchallenged) Japan. \u00a0(rant: I hate to be the cynic, but couldn’t have Roark just hung around Palm Beach the last 3 weeks and just show up in LA for this start?? \u00a0NOW do you see why I hate it when our pitchers get “invited” to pitch in the WBC?). \u00a0Luckily, he pitched well, throwing 4+ scoreless innings before making way and thus not getting the W. \u00a0The US squeaked out enough runs to win.<\/p>\n

In the final,\u00a0Marcus Stroman\u00a0<\/strong>(former Nats draftee, I remind you) threw 6+ no-hit innings and the USA bats finally wore down PR’s pitching and won going away 8-0.<\/p>\n

Several good post-WBC wrap up columns; one I like<\/a> from\u00a0Jim Bowden<\/strong>\u00a0(yeah yeah boo hiss) where he talks winners and losers, and another good one<\/a> from\u00a0Tom Verducci<\/strong>, where he talks about some high-lights and has some intelligent suggestions.<\/p>\n

Great event, certainly more exciting and better baseball than we’ve seen in year’s past, and I agree with both Bowden and Verducci that this may have finally been the WBC to “turn the tide” on American participation. \u00a0Both visible critics\u00a0Noah Snydergaard<\/strong> and\u00a0Mike Trout<\/strong> have done 180-degree reversals on the event which is great to see.<\/p>\n

Next up! \u00a0Nats roster finalization.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KW in the previous comments pointed out that I picked against Puerto Rico in every round. \u00a0Yes I did. \u00a0I’m a sucker for pitching, and I just never thought PR’s pitching staff would take them all the way. \u00a0And in the end … it came down to pitching to decide the WBC. Here’s how the […]<\/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":[485,507,2735,456,2326,77,441,3461],"class_list":["post-13561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-baseball-classic","tag-adam-jones","tag-jim-bowden","tag-marcus-stroman","tag-mike-trout","tag-noah-snydergaard","tag-tanner-roark","tag-tom-verducci","tag-wladimir-balentien"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13561","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=13561"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13568,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13561\/revisions\/13568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}