Wbc

[RedsoxRockies]

Today is great, baseball all day to watch. BOTH games have been awesome so far, and now its Panama vs Puerto Rico. I want the underdog, Panama to win. And tonight, Venezuela vs Italy, of course I am pulling for mi Italia!!

[200tang]

Is Felix pitching for Venezuela?

[PotatoOfCouch13]

Good to see Pudge still has that cannon for an arm. Too bad it was a sloppy exchange.

[RedsoxRockies]

Panama has some fun to watch players. Durango and Vasquez (White Sox Prospect) have been really exciting.

[200tang]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index...inst-team-usa/

Mariners reppin'!

[RedsoxRockies]

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index...inst-team-usa/

Mariners reppin'!

Phillipe is awesome. And I bet this performance will be comparable to David Price in the playoffs for drawing attention and hype

[200tang]

Phillipe is awesome. And I bet this performance will be comparable to David Price in the playoffs for drawing attention and hype

He's still got a few years to go I think; he's still unpolished overall but he definitely has talent. A Felix, Morrow, Strasburg, Aumont front 4 would be awesome

[200tang]

Great, instead of Felix Hernandez I get to watch Carlos Silva

I suffer enough through the regular season

[RedsoxRockies]

Vive' Italia!!! This is the big game for me, though why is this game up in Canada and not down in San Juan??? That is closer to both home countries, especially Venezuela... And AWESOME play Catalanato!!!

[OldFatGuy]

Ok, so who saw Bobby Abreu get his jock handed to him???

Man, I love it when MLB veterans lolligag on the base paths AND GET CAUGHT ON IT.

Lolligag, lolligag, lolligag. What's that make them??? A bunch of lolligaggers.

[actionjackson]

Vive' Italia!!! This is the big game for me, though why is this game up in Canada and not down in San Juan??? That is closer to both home countries, especially Venezuela... And AWESOME play Catalanato!!!

Umm, you do realize that Toronto has the largest Italian population per capita of any city in the world outside of Italy right?

That USA/Canada game was awesome to be at in person. The Rogers Centre hasn't been that lively since...well back when it was known as the SkyDome (excepting Opening Day most years with which I have a bit of a love/hate relationship as the idiot to rational human being ratio is about 10:1 [see YouTube: "baseball fan fights" or something like that]). There was some back and forth ribbing, but it was all good natured stuff, no throwing sh!t at each other and inadvertently hitting innocent bystanders like when the Yankees and Red Sox come to town to take on the Jays every year. Both sides had boisterous support, but for freakin' once the home town fans were able to drown out the cheers of the visiting team's fans. I must emphasize that because I'm sooo not used to it down there. Of course, unlike most of you I'm not happy with the end result but it was great to be a part of and I recommend the experience to any of you that are near stadiums that will be hosting the later rounds. If the first round has been this intense, I can only imagine what the next three rounds will hold, so do yourself a favour and go see it.

1) To echo what others have said above: Phillipe Aumont - wow. Mariners fans, I think your suffering over the last little bit will somehow seem worth it in the end. Hey, it got rid of Bavasi and it got you Zduriencik, which is a complete 180 as far as talent evaluation goes. It can be difficult moving from scout to GM *cough J.P. Ricciardi cough*, but Jack Z seems to have a level head on his shoulders so I think he'll do fine and it doesn't hurt to have the number 2 pick in this year's draft either. Perhaps one day soon, 200tang, CoachOwens, boomboom and any other M's fans I might have missed, your team will kick the brutal Carlos Silva to the curb (or at least out of any meaningful non-blowout innings) and have some tremendous young arms ready to pick up the slack.

2) Looks like our (Toronto Blue Jays) fearless leader J.P. Ricciardi hit the nail on the head again. Adam Dunn has NO passion for the game of baseball. He wasn't getting paid to lay out for a sliding catch in RF (his off-field) but there he was stealing a hit from us today and then hitting a monster blast the opposite way to provide runs 5 and 6 in an eventual 6-5 loss. "I've never been to the playoffs, but I imagine that this was a playoff atmosphere, the crowd was electric. It was how baseball should be played. It was so much fun. If this is like the playoffs, then I have to be in the playoffs. This is incredible... In the ninth inning if your blood wasn't boiling and your heart wasn't pounding, you don't have a heartbeat. For me, this is the best experience I have ever had in baseball, and we've only played one game." Yep, sounds to me like a big loafin' lollygagger who's just going through the motions alright. Right again J.P., right again.

3) The hometown kid Joey Votto did all he could to get us back in it. Too bad he didn't get much help from Morneau, Bay and Stairs. It must be cool to be a Reds fan and follow this guy day in day out.

4) That USA bullpen is pretty frightening, well the whole damn team is, but man Matt Thornton in the 5th? Shields in the 7th? Yikes!

Better buckle up folks, this is gonna be fun whoever winds up winning it. Baseball fans are the ultimate winners. The executive offices of each MLB team, not so much. They're all waking up 4 or 5 times a night in a cold sweat absolutely sure that they've just lost one of their stars for the season. Poor wretches.

[200tang]

3) The hometown kid Joey Votto did all he could to get us back in it. Too bad he didn't get much help from Morneau, Bay and Stairs. It must be cool to be a Reds fan and follow this guy day in day out.

Oh man, I watched most of that game and Votto's blast was awesome. When it left his bat you pretty much knew it was long gone.

Also, has anybody been watching Japan's 1B/3B Murata? I didn't see today's JPN v KOR game, but in the JPN v CHN game his swing looked really nice. Every time that guy put the bat on the ball he launched it to the deep parts of the outfield.

[DarthJaker]

You have never heard of Jason Grilli, Frank Catalanato, Nick Punto, Mark DiFelice, (all italy) and Rick Vanden Hurk(Netherlands) in that case...

I heard of them all except DiFelice i have Rick's rookie card

[dps]

Or Greg Halman (Netherlands), who is a top-5 spect for Seattle

Or Greg Kingsale or Luis Matos, who granted are both journeymen, but who also both have 7 seasons in the majors?

[Joe12Pack]

4) That USA bullpen is pretty frightening, well the whole damn team is, but man Matt Thornton in the 5th? Shields in the 7th? Yikes!

And just look at the guys who didn't even hit the mound... Ziegler, Broxton, Lindstrom. Fuentes will be added in the next round, I think. This bullpen is absolutely insane.