After losing to the Netherlands on Saturday 3- 2, in a game where the Dom. Rep. pretty much beat themselves, the Dominicans knew that another lost in this 1st round would mean an early exit to a Dominican team that much more was expected.
Changes were made in this game as Felipe Alou had Jose Reyes starting at short instead of Hanley Ramirez, who in the game vs the Netherlands was a goat along with Willy Tavares, when Ramirez's 1st inning error led to 2 runs and the upsetting 1st game lost to the Netherlands.
The starter for the Dominicans was Johnny Cueto who early on had some trouble when the leadoff hitter led off with a hit, and a hit batmans was aloud by Cueto.
But Cueto would get a double play ball and a strike out to get out of the inning untouched. Cueto would roll on from there with 5 scoreless innings, before handling the ball over to Julian Tavares.
The pressure was now off the heavily favorite Dominicans who were trying to avoid another embarrassment in the hands of another inferior team. It was in the 3rd inning where the Dominicans got on the board against Panama's starter Ramiro Mendoza when several fielding errors led to 3 runs and the eventual fall for Panama.
The rout was on in the 8th when Miguel Olivo delivered his 2nd HR of the game to make the score 8 to 0. Nelson Cruz would also go deep in this one where the Dominicans would go on to win by the final score of 9 to 0. So far the Dominican bullpen has done the job, but one cannot get to excited by doing well against the Netherlands and Panama, as the real test will be in the next round, If the Dominicans can get another win. If I have any beef about how the Dominicans played in this game I will have to take my beef with Willy Tavares, who in the game against the Netherlands was thrown out trying to steal 3rd in the 9th inning. In this game, Tavares in the middle of the Dominican 3rd inning rally, ran through a stop sign by his 3rd base coach and was thrown out at the plate. This kind of knuckle headed play must not continue if the Dominicans want to go deep into the tournament.
Now the Dominicans will face the loser from the Puerto Rico and Netherlands game, which most likely will be a rematch with the Neds. If that is the case, the Dominicans look pretty good in trying to make it to the next round in Miami, where the competition will get alot better with teams like USA, Puerto Rico and Venezuela looming. But 1st the Dominicans must win another game before they start thinking ahead themselves. I look for the Dominicans to give the ball to Ubaldo Jimenez, and look for the Dominicans to get on the board early to avoid the pressure from building up as the game goes along. One thing that the Dominicans must try and do better is execute their fundamentals better which have been noticeably lacking so far in this tournament.
In other WBC news, team USA advances to Miami by beating the Venezuelans heavily, as they now join Japan and Korea as the 1st teams to make it to the next round.
Team Mexico got their asses knocked out by Australia 17 to 7, in front of the home fans, and must now look to avoid a disappointing early exit, as they host pool B, who has the Cubans who already won their game by beating South Africa while connecting 7 HR's in the victory.
2 comments:
You forgot about Tavares not going home in the game with the Netherlands. He was on 3rd and there was a wild pitch and he stayed at 3rd. Wasn't a big deal at the time but it became a big non-play.
Oh I remember that one too, it turned out to be big after that as
we all know we lost by 1. He has been really bad in the 2 games so far with his play.
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