World Baseball Classic 2026

[FreoRicci]

Why the **** as the pitcher would you touch that… just let your shortstop field that

 

[ExchangeStatMan]

Wow Australia really bungled that up .

 

[FreoRicci]

Devastating. Defence win matches

 

[Phone]

what a way to lose. heartbreaking

 

[FreoRicci]

Wow Australia really bungled that up .

The bats never got going

 

[Guardian Hawk]

Why the **** as the pitcher would you touch that… just let your shortstop field that

Sure, but the awful throw into the ground in what should have been a simple out to cost us the final run was way, way worse.

 

[FreoRicci]

Sure, but the awful throw into the ground in what should have been a simple out to cost us the final run was way, way worse.

Unfortunate. Just throw to first and get that out

 

[ExchangeStatMan]

Taits Jr got all of this against Israel:

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Nilsson has got to go. Don't like him as a manager.

Australia was in the box seat to reach the quarter finals. Losing to Japan was not unexpected, but he managed the Korea game so poorly. He either left in pitchers for too long or took them out too soon.

His lineup decisions were poor. Got away with it against Taiwan and Czechia, but there's no way Whitefield should have batted behind Mead. You want Whitefield on base creating havoc for Mead to then hit bombs.

I also heard that politics got involved with respect to players not being selected for the tournament. Lewis Thorpe has pitched beautifully this season and wasn't picked for the main squad. Brandon Bidois has put up incredible numbers as a reliever in the minor leagues and wasn't selected.

I know Nilsson is baseball royalty in this country. He and the players both blew that golden chance last night.

 

[BobbyMorri]

Not much of a Baseball fan. but really got into it this tournament.

We were so good against Japan. one bad innings cost us there. A slow start against Korea cost us last night.

devastating to miss out by a single run.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Reflecting on it a bit more. In hindsight, the fact the Australians beat the Czech Republic 5-1 did not help. Korea beat them 11-4, while Taiwan beat them 14-0 in a mercy win. Had Australia scored a few more runs against what turned out to be the easy-beats of the group would have seen Australia have a bigger cushion to play with against Korea last night.

The pitching and the defence will be scrutinised after the last two games, but the hitters also failed to fire when they needed to, really. Bazzana hit .188/.235/.375, Perkins hit .154/.267/.385 (with six strikeouts against two walks) and Wingrove hit .143/.200/.357 (with four strikeouts against zero walks). That return from your lead-off hitter, and two sluggers across the four pool games just isn't what it needed to be in order to help Australia push to the knock-out stage.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Why the **** as the pitcher would you touch that… just let your shortstop field that

Instinct took over, I suspect. Regardless, Dale should have made that play easily.

 

[FreoRicci]

Reflecting on it a bit more. In hindsight, the fact the Australians beat the Czech Republic 5-1 did not help. Korea beat them 11-4, while Taiwan beat them 14-0 in a mercy win. Had Australia scored a few more runs against what turned out to be the easy-beats of the group would have seen Australia have a bigger cushion to play with against Korea last night.

The pitching and the defence will be scrutinised after the last two games, but the hitters also failed to fire when they needed to, really. Bazzana hit .188/.235/.375, Perkins hit .154/.267/.385 (with six strikeouts against two walks) and Wingrove hit .143/.200/.357 (with four strikeouts against zero walks). That return from your lead-off hitter, and two sluggers across the four pool games just isn't what it needed to be in order to help Australia push to the knock-out stage.

Agree.
Thought the pitching staff did an exceptional even miraculous job all tournament.

Allowed 4 runs v Japan.
Shut Out Chinese Taipei.
Only allowed 1 run v Czechia.

It was always going to be tough v Korea. They were going to swing at every strike.

Bats really didn’t get going all tournament and gave no help to the pitchers. Needed at least 2 more runs every game to make it easier on themselves.

Had two runners on in the first inning v Korea, 1 out. Didn’t capitalise at all.

Gave up 4 runs in the 4 innings v Korea. After that, Australia pitched very well.

Australia really battled out of their skins given how much more invested Korea, Chinese Taipei and of course Japan are in baseball.

There has to be more funding for ABL. Scholarships for Aussies playing the game, to develop. But unfortunately this country just don’t invest in other sports as much as they do in AFL and NRL

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Italy knocked off the USA in Houston to maintain a perfect 3-0 start to their pool play. The US now slip to second in the group at 3-1, but are at risk of not making it through to the knock-out stage. Italy play Mexico tomorrow at Daikin Park. If Mexico beats Italy, then it is probable that Italy and Mexico would advance from Pool B, with the USA missing out on tiebreakers.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

USA manager, Mark DeRosa, told reporters before the game that they wanted to beat Italy even though they had already "punched their ticket" to the quarter finals. Turns out that this is not accurate.

 

[FreoRicci]

Italy have caused an upset and defeated USA.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

The crowd at the Tokyo Dome giving retiring Czech starting pitcher Ondrej Satoria a standing ovation after he threw a scoreless 4 2/3 innings against Japan last night. Japan would go on to win the game 9-0, with all nine runs being scored in the eighth inning. Japan rested Shohei Ohtani, Seiya Suzuki and Kensuke Kondoh from the team that defeated Australia, but they still used Munetaka Murakami (who broke out of a slump by hitting a grand slam in the eighth inning) and Kazuma Okamoto.

Satoria announced that he would stop playing for the Czech national team to spend more time with his wife and daughter, while he would continue to play domestic baseball in the Czech Republic.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

 

[FreoRicci]

Trust Judge to fail in any clutch/playoff situation.

 

[ExchangeStatMan]

Permutations for Italy and Mexico to both progress in the last game:

 

[revo333]

It is an upset but I didn't realise Italy had that many players currently in the Majors.

 

[corbies]

Reflecting on it a bit more. In hindsight, the fact the Australians beat the Czech Republic 5-1 did not help. Korea beat them 11-4, while Taiwan beat them 14-0 in a mercy win. Had Australia scored a few more runs against what turned out to be the easy-beats of the group would have seen Australia have a bigger cushion to play with against Korea last night.

The tiebreaker was lowest quotient of runs allowed by defensive outs between tied teams. It was only the runs allowed in the matches between the tied teams (i.e Aus v CT, CT v Kor, Aus v Kor) that counted towards the tiebreaker.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Permutations for Italy and Mexico to both progress in the last game:

All rendered moot by the fact Italy crushed Mexico 9-1 to book their spot and the US' spot in the quarter finals.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

In the quarter-finals, Korea will play the Dominican Republic on Saturday, with the USA then facing Canada in the second quarter-final later on Saturday. Puerto Rico play Italy and Venezuela play Japan on Sunday.

The first semi-final will be played on Monday, Australian time, with the second semi-final played on Tuesday. The WBC final will be staged on Wednesday, Australian time.

 

[FreoRicci]

Korea got smashed 10-0 by Dominican Republic. Don’t think Australia would’ve been productive either