[ThePundit]

Willis bombed again. In two WBC starts, Willis is 0-2 with a 12.71 ERA. He allowed three runs in three innings last night, walking four.

A-Rod: the hero of Sunday's 4-3 victory over Japan, went 0-for-5 and stranded five runners.

If Mexico defeats Japan tonight, then the USA will regain control of its destiny and can clinch a semifinal berth with a Thursday victory over Mexico.

But if Japan prevails tonight, then the Americans' hole will grow deeper. A subsequent Japan victory over Korea tomorrow would put the U.S. in real trouble, since Team USA permitted a total of 10 runs to Japan and Korea, thereby putting it in bad shape in a tiebreaker scenario against those two teams.

[Lefty Noob]

This has been embarrassing, especially since there's a very real chance that we should be 0-2, not 1-1, in Round 2 right now. Willis has been awful. The hitting vanished. If we don't start playing better, we don't deserve to advance to the semis. And isn't it funny that, once again, we're counting on the Rocket to bail us out? I'm hopeful, but it certainly doesn't look good...

[MVB]

Jeter and Griffey, Jr. looked like the only two who knew how to play ball yesterday.... Very sad... But the bright side is, if the US gets eliminated, all the US players get to return to spring training which is where they should be.

What did you'all think of the scrap between Willis and Varitek?

[ThePundit]

MVB: Didn't see it, what happened? I'll try to watch it on today's highlights.

[MVB]

Unfortunately I didn't see it all either. ESPNnews had a recap of the game and I saw Willis and Varitek barking at each other. That's all I saw...

[Wizard of Os]

Hey, Willis vs. Varitek exchanging words? Basically anything short of Varitek suggesting biological obscenities is utterly justifiable the way Willis has been sucking like a black hole.

Is it me or has every game in Pool 1 completely changed the story of the World Baseball Classic? Japan beats Mexico 6-1 today, thereby confronting fans of God's Game with the very real possibility of all-Asian advancement. On the other hand, if Team USA beats the neighbors and Japan rides their quality ball somehow past red-hot Korea, Pool 1 has a three-way tie at the top with 2-1 records.

This possibility would be a bit of a bummer, though, with odd tiebreaker rules decided advancement. (Why not an extra game? Tiebreakers are played in the MLB after one hundred sixty-two games, why not the World Baseball Classic after three?) I believe that Team USA would advance as the two seed in this instance, because they beat Japan on A-Rod's little dribbler.

In fact, unless i'm mistaken (someone please correct me on this if i am), all Pool 1 advancement is basically determined by the USA-Mexico game. If the USA wins, it's them and Korea. If Mexico wins, Korea and Japan advance (based on the 6-1 Japan win over Mexico), with the Korea-Japan game determining only seedings. No?

Arethe Rocket's shoulders sore? 'Cause he's carrying a lot on them. And then imagine Rocket throwing a Shairon Marts(!)-like game, yet losing 1-0 on, o, a Chipper Jones error. This should be a likely scenario, as the Americans are hitting at a .290 clip, second in the elite eight only to Japan.

And you just know Team Mexico wants to beat the red, white and blue guys, and they want it BAD. Talk about playing for pride.

Wow, how tense.

This is baseball, folks. I've got the fever.

Cheers, all.

[Lefty Noob]

The sad fact is that we could be eliminated before we even play Mexico.

South Korea (2-0) can earn a berth in the semifinals by beating Japan (1-1). If that happens, the United States (1-1) would also make it by beating Mexico (0-2) on Thursday.

But if Japan beats South Korea, the Americans could be eliminated from contention even before playing Mexico. That would happen if Japan wins in a nine-inning game and scores seven runs or less because of the complicated tiebreaker system being employed.

That kind of outcome is a distinct possibility, since Japan has allowed only 13 runs in five WBC games while South Korea has given up just seven.

"That's the way it is -- we created it ourselves," Team USA manager Buck Martinez said about his team's sticky situation. "That's the unique aspect of this. Now, it's up to Korea and Japan."

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/top/news;_yl...v=ap&type=lgns

Everyone start rooting for South Korea!

[MVB]

Hee Sop Choi is one of my favorite MLB players, so I'm rooting for the Korean team anyway...

Last night the Dominican Republic advanced to the classic semi-finals, beating Venezuala 2-1. Venezuala, winner of the Latin American World Series, was eliminated.

[sportriches]

Koreans are a very stong team. There is a very good possibility that they will beat Japan. They did in the first round

[Lefty Noob]

Hi, sportsriches, and welcome to GoTeamsGo. Thanks for joining us here on the World Baseball Classic board. I certainly hope they can pull off the win. It'd be mighty embarrassing for Team USA to not even make the semifinals in a world wide tournament for "America's Game" you know?

[sportriches]

Originally Posted by Lefty Noob

Hi, sportsriches, and welcome to GoTeamsGo. Thanks for joining us here on the World Baseball Classic board. I certainly hope they can pull off the win. It'd be mighty embarrassing for Team USA to not even make the semifinals in a world wide tournament for "America's Game" you know?

i think that the problem with the team USA is that they are not as motivated as the rest of the players in the tournament. for other teams, a win in the tournament means so much more. that could be one of the reasons that USA might lose.

if USA loses do you think that the team that eventually wins the World Series can be called the World Champs?

[MVB]

Definitely! Look at the teams... Almost all the major stars play for a US team major league team... So when a ML team wins the World series, they are indeed world champions.