Team USA Eeks Out Victory Against Canada

Team USA kicked off their World Baseball Classic with a 6-5 victory over Canada. It was actually a great baseball game. I did tend to get annoyed some as Rick Sutcliffe made about 1,000 comments as too how good the game was and how unbelievable the WBC is. Hey, Rick, knock it off, I'm on board already, its overkill, much like the use of commas in the sentence.

Anyway, Jake Peavy got the start for USA. He pitched 3 innings while striking out 4 and gave up a home run to Joey Votto, by the way, that ball was absolutely crushed. Canada trotted out a relative unknown to most Americans and most MLB players as well apparently as Peavy didn't even know what his first name was according to Sutcliff. Well his name was Mike Johnson and he was pretty Jamie Moyer like in his approach. He pitched 4 innings and gave up 4 runs.

MLB journeyman LaTroy Hawkins ended up with the victory while Johnson got the loss for Canada, J.J. Putz got the save. Plenty of fire power was seen as Kevin Youkilis, Brian McCann and Adam Dunn hit homers for USA while Joey Votto and Russell Martin hit dingers for Canada.

Ryan Braun wasn't so spectacular at the plate where he went 0-4 with a strikeout but did make a running and jumping catch in the outfield. Brewers Minor league prospect, Brett Lawrie saw the field as a pinch runner for team Canada as well.

Boxscore

In other WBC news, the power house Dominican Republic team was majorly upset by Netherlands, which is mostly made up of players from islands in the Caribbean including Curacao which are colonies of Holland or something like that. That is probably way wrong, but who cares this isn't a geography class. Either way, huge upset.

Team USA now moves on to play the winner of Italy and Venezuela in Pool C action. That game will take place tomorrow night at 7 pm on ESPN at the Rogers Center in Toronto.

(Photo By Rueters/Mark Blinch)