Happy Friday, everyone.
After last night's tremendous World Baseball Classic game between the Dominican Republic and AMERICA, baseball writers, bloggers and I'm sure advertisers, are starting to take notice of just how awesome this tournament is.
Smoltzy said it best during last night's telecast: "This is beyond October."
And it is. Look, I know it's going to take a while for American players and fans to finally catch on. But everyone else is in this thing, full-throttle. I couldn't believe the emotion that the Dominicans and their fans showed last night. They deserved that win more than USA deserved the loss, and I - "we", cannot wait for a rematch with them.
The collective "we", man.
Tonight, The Collective We plays Puerto Rico. Which, if you want to be an ass, is kinda part of "us", anyways. But since they're not a state, then they can be their own kind of thing. Which is fine, as I am sure they wouldn't want to be grouped in with us anyways.
The pitching matchup is a little lopsided, with legitimate Cy Young candidate Ryan Vogelsong versus fringe-starter but more appropriately long-reliever or Org Guy Nelson Figueroa. The lineup for Puerto Rico kind of looks like that of a non-playoff MLB team, with very solid players and very little star power. By now, you know the formidable USA lineup with it's glaring holes at the top and bottom.
All considered, pitching wins games more than anything else, and I have to take Vogelsong and the deep USA lineup over Figueroa and a shallow Puerto Rican lineup.
So tune in. Even if you're Canadian. It's going to be a good game. Saturday will be even better, abd Sunday even better than that, but nothing may come close to last night's. But it's still going to be fun.
Besides. It's baseball that means something. In March! Do it!
