WBC Roundup: Sunday

Well, Nate Robertson finally made things interesting for the fifth starter job by pitching well yesterday (It’s about time someone did). And with that, let’s continue on to the WBC:

Pool 2
I missed the first game due to being at work, but I actually watched some of the second game (and if you’ve been following my posts, you’ll know that’s significant). If you looked at these matchups on paper, you’d’ve thought that the Baseball Fairy delivered the wrong score to each game. Venezuela beat the Netherlands, but they didn’t exactly sting the ball against them. Lucky for them, two of their three hits were home runs, including one from Cabrera. To my chagrin, I read that Magglio got booed a lot, because he’s a staunch supporter of Hugo Chavez and apparently the Venezuelan fans in Miami are not. As for me, I don’t like Republicans in Washington OR Hugo Chavez, but I decided a long time ago not to delve into players’ political preferences, cuz if I did, I’d probably end up hating half the team, and I don’t want to do that. What they should’ve booed Magglio for was the shirt he was wearing in the postgame press conference. Ack.

As for the other game yesterday, well, I did say that while Team USA had the better pitching, Puerto Rico had been pitching better (Confused yet?). And that certainly came true last night. It was another big night for Pudge, who had three hits, two doubles, and two RBIs, and left even more people wondering why he doesn’t have a job (Anyone else notice that Pudge seems to have a better game offensively when he’s catching than when he’s the DH?). By the way, it looked as though Pudge’s son was there, cuz I saw a kid wearing a Rodriguez jersey coming out of the dugout at the end of the game. I think he’d be about 15 or 16 now, and that’s what this kid looked like. I don’t know how good a baseball player he is because I’ve never heard one way or the other from an impartial source (obviously, FSN and Pudge are not impartial sources), but I’m not sure he’d be a catcher. He’s definitely taller than his father, but he’s got kind of a small frame, though he does have time to fill that out. At any rate, today the Netherlands and Team USA face off in an elimination game, and Pool 1 action gets underway.