Saturday, July 31, 2010

World University Baseball Championship, Day 2 and 3

I am in Seattle until August 18th and thus I am not going to the WUBC.
I am in Seattle until August 18th and thus I am not going to the WUBC.
I am in Seattle until August 18th and thus I am not going to the WUBC.
I am in Seattle until August 18th and thus I am not going to the WUBC.
I am in Seattle until August 18th and thus I am not going to the WUBC.

Day 2:

My Kagami got a chance to pitch! Hooray! But it was against a Chinese team that totally got blown out! Boo!

Japan annhilated China by a score of 15-0 in a 6-inning called game where exactly one Chinese batter reached base (embarassingly, it was a hit off of Kagami). Yusuke Nomura started and pitched 3 innings, striking out 6, Kagami followed with 2 innings striking out 4, and Yuhei Nakaushiro pitched the last inning, striking out 2. (Much better than when he got roughed up by the NPB Fresh All-Stars on Monday.) Hayata Itoh continued his Clutchy McClutchiness streak and hit another home run.

Two other blowout called games happened as well, as Cuba beat Korea 18-0 in 5 innings before an audience of 500 or so at Jingu (ouch), and Canada blew out Sri Lanka 18-0 in 5 innings at Meiji University's Utsumi/Shimaoka ballpark in a relatively large crowd of 140.

Day 3:
Kagami got to pitch again. Unfortunately, this time it was against a Cuban team that pounded the hell out of Japan 12-7, and like most of the other guys who pitched, he got pounded. At least he didn't give up a home run (Fujioka and Sugano each gave up 3 homers, though Sugano also struck out 5 guys in 3 innings, which is not bad). I guess I was right that it was going to be an "interesting" game.

The US beat Chinese Taipei and Korea beat China, neither of which is a surprise.

In the meantime, Sri Lanka has now been pounded 49-0 in 15 innings. I feel kinda bad for them.

Chinese Taipei has been holding its own very well against the other teams despite that it lost to Canada and the US. One wonders why Cuba isn't in the US-Canada group and Chinese Taipei isn't in the Japan-China-Korea group as usual?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Deanna,
Thanks for your reply, hope you have fun out in Seattle!

The official WUBC site and USAbaseball.com website both suck! It's incredible how little coverage Team USA is getting here in the states. The College World Series is broadcast nationwide every year yet we can't find pictures/videos of the very BEST college players playing for their country overseas.

A shame you couldn't of watched Gerritt Cole of the USA team pitch vs Taiwan. He's the guy who was drafted 1st round by the New York Yankees...turned them DOWN...and is now hitting 98 MPH on the gun. Amazing!

Maybe you can help lead me in one direction however. The Japan games and the semifinals/finals will be broadcast on NHK. Is there a site where the games are streaming online? Kind of like ustream or justin.tv

Thanks!!!

-Albert

Shinichi T said...

Hi Deanna,
Did you hear Fighters are looking for gaijin to be a ballpark PA announcer for Aug 18 Tokyo Dome game vs Lotte? If you're back by then, I'm sure you'll have a great chance to be chosen!
-Shinichi

Deanna said...

I get back to Japan ON August 18th :( I don't think I could make it to the Dome in time. I suppose it's another "International Day" game? I was at that last year and got to dance YMCA on the field...