While you were sleeping last night, the 2013 iteration of the World Baseball Classic kicked off over on the other side of the globe with games in Taiwan and Japan. There was a little bit of everything in the three games; a fallen MLB star making good for his home country in the Australia/Chinese Taipei game, a near upset of titantic proportions in Japan/Brazil, and Netherlands taking on South Korea in an attempt to solidify their place as a strong baseballing country after their suprising run in the 2009 WBC.
There weren't many players on in any of the games last night that would be familiar to American audiences, but who cares? Chinese Taipei made themselves into one of the most interesting teams in the tournament with their hilarious spying expedition. Japan is the two time defending champs and it's always interesting to see what the best players of the NPB can do on an international stage. Netherlands and South Korea make up two thirds of what might be the tightest qualification fight in the tournament in Pool A (Chinese Taipei is the third strong team in the group.
So what happened? Let's break it down after the jump!
It seems like a million years ago that Chien-Ming Wang was one of the American League's best pitchers, but really, it's only been since 2007. In the years since then, Wang has battled shoulder injuries, dropped off the map entirely, and re-emerged in Washington as a spot starter for the Nationals. He's only thrown 94 2/3 innings in the last two years with the Nats after missing all of 2010, and he doesn't have a spring training invite in 2013.
None of that really mattered last night. Wang dominated the Australians with six shutout innings, letting the host Chinese Taipei build up a 4-0 lead that was more than enough for their lesser-heralded bullpen to hold. Australia's bullpen did a strong job after starter Chris Oxpring was pulled in the third inning with a 3-0 deficit, but the Aussies only mustered five hits against Wang, Yao-Hsun Yan, Hung-Chih Kuo, and Hung-Wen Chan. Chinese Taipei jumped on the board early with some small ball (a single by Dai-Kang Yang was followed by a bunt, which let Yang score on a single by Cheng-Min Peng). They padded that with two runs in the third scored with two singles, a walk, and a groundout, and that was plenty.
Chinese Taipei's next game will be at 1:30 AM Eastern time on Sunday morning against Netherlands, with the winner more or less clinching qualification into the second round. Australia will play South Korea at 5:30 AM on Monday, if you're looking for something to do before work or are an insomniac.
I was happily sleeping the night away by the time this game started, but I imagine that if I'd been awake for this one it would've had me on the edge of my seat until the eighth inning. Brazil jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first, Japan tied it in the third, the teams traded runs in the fourth, and Brazil took a 3-2 lead in the fifth that they held for a few innings. Brazil over Japan is probably just about the biggest upset that could conceivably happen in this tournament. Japan did finally rally in the eighth inning, getting a lead-off single from Seiichi Uchikawa, an RBI single from Hirokazu Ibata, a run scoring groundout from Shinnosuke Abe, and a final RBI single from Nobuhiro Matsuda.
The pitcher of record for Japan was Tadashi Settsu, who came into the game in the fifth and gave up the run that put Brazil ahead, but then shut them down after that. He went three innings and only allowed two hits with no walks to go with his four strikeouts. Atsushi Nomi and Kazuhisa Makita shut things down in the eighth and ninth. Brazil got a big game from third baseman Leonardo Reginatto, who went 3-for-4 with two doubles, two RBIs, and a run scored. Leadoff hitter and center fielder Paulo Orlando was 2-for-4 and scored twice.
Brazil will be back in action at 10:30 tonight (Eastern time) against Cuba. Japan's next game is at 5:00 AM Eastern time on Sunday morning against China.
The Netherlands is the only team in this group with any sort of extensive big league experience, and it certainly showed in this mornings opener against Korea. They jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the second inning after Andruw Jones doubled, then later scored on a Curt Smith sac fly. Later in the game, Andrelton Simmons drove the offense. The young Braves' shortstop had three hits and scored twice, once on a single by Wladimir Balentien and once on a double by Roger Bernadina.
Of course, it wasn't just the MLB-drive offense that shone for the Dutch Honkballers; Diegomar Markwell started and tossed four innings of two-hit shutout ball, the Orlando Yntenma followed him with three shutout innings allowing just two more hits. Leon Boyd came in and got five outs in a row before walking Hyunsoo Kim in the ninth, so Mark Pawelek was called on to get the final out for the four-hit shutout.
This win sets the Netherlands up nicely to advance out of pool play for the second straight year, since it seemed likely that they were going to battle Korea for the second qualifying spot behind the Chinese Taipei hosts. In fact, they can likely lock up a spot in the second round with a win over Chinese Taipei at 1:30 in the morning overnight, when they play Chinese Taipei. Seriously: I'm thinking about staying up for that game. As mentioned above, Korea won't play again they see Australia at 5:30 AM on Monday morning. They can still get through, of course, but they'll probably need to win out.
