Well, That was disappointing.

I'm not so much disappointed in R.A., as the Mexicans came out swinging and he did not have his knuckleball working yet. He DID have some good ones, but one (to Adrian Gonzalez) stayed way too up and was way too devastating. The air was deflated from all the other players by their Knuckler not having it early. And the USA team never recovered. They looked listless the whole night, and not in sync. Wright had a great defensive showing, though, and a better offensive showing after he grounded into a double play in the 1st inning, including the first USA rbi of the year with a single to right, plating Jimmy Rollins (which is still weird to say, but we might as well get used to it in these tournaments. Luckily, it's the only place we'll be saying it.)

That overall performance, combined with Italia mercy-ruling the Canadians, and we are looking at kinda a scary matchup all of a sudden when the USA takes on Team Italy at 9PM EST tonight on MLB Network.

Sidenote: R.A. Dickey really is the first athlete ever I will root for and follow like he is a team.

He is an extension of my Met fandom and an extension of the Mets....until he finishes his career with us.

As for this Spanish team, as I type this, they are working the same formula today as they did against Puerto Rico: pitch ok but not good enough to keep a great Dominican lineup off the board early, and miss every RBI opportunity you have...and play poor defense. Their inexperience is dangling off their sleeve, and they are tripping over it. BUT if their offense comes around, it could get interesting...but what is most likely going to happen is that DR will mercy-rule this thing at some point.


Lotta baseball today. Got the Mets on SNY at 1PM, Canada v Mexico at 2:30PM, Puerto Rico v Venezuela at 5:30PM and, once more, USA v Italia at 9PM, with World Champion Ryan Vogelsong on the mound.

We'll see how he does on March 9th.

(Oh, and Cuba mercy-ruled Chinese Tapei early this morning.)

Enjoy your Saturday, folks.

Here's the Song of the Day.

LET'S. GO. METS.

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