The vagaries of scheduling made yesterday a day chock full of Czechia baseball action… but unfortunately, it went pretty terribly for them.
The early-morning (at least here on the East Coast of the United States) contest saw Czechia get absolutely clobbered by Korea. Starter Daniel Padysak didn’t even escape the first inning — two walks and a single loaded the bases, and then Bo Gyeong Moon unloaded them with a grand slam. The game got kind of closer (6-3) when Terrin Vavra (I think the only guy on Team
Czechia with MLB experience) hit a three-run homer in the fifth, but Korea’s onslaught continued and the game ended with a 11-4 tally. Korea hit four homers in total, including two by Astros infielder Shay Whitcomb. Overall, it was about as unbalanced as you’d probably expect when glancing at the matchup: Czechia pitchers had a combined 6/5 K/BB ratio to go with those four homers; Korea’s pitching slate had a 12/3 K/BB ratio.
There was a very quick turnaround of only about 14 hours before Czechia had to get on the horse again, this time against Australia. This game didn’t go much better for them. Though they did take an early lead on a sac fly, White Sox infielder Curtis Mead bashed a three-run homer off starter Tomas Ondra, and that was basically the game. (Southern Thunder added a couple of more runs in the ninth, including an Alex Hall homer.) The game was heavy on balls in play, as there were only a combined ten strikeouts across the two teams.
Czechia is now in pretty unfortunate territory, since the remaining pool-mates they haven’t played include Japan.
Speaking of haven’t played, Friday’s slate is massive:
- Japan-Taiwan (spoiler alert, Japan already won 13-0)
- Cuba-Panama
- Netherlands-Venezuela (aka, the Braves Best Buds Cup)
- Mexico-Great Britain
- Puerto Rico-Colombia
- Nicaragua-Dominican Republic
- USA-Brazil
- Taiwan-Czechia (yes, a short turnaround for Taiwan this time)
Which of those matchups are you most looking forward to? It’s probably the Braves Best Buds Cup, but maybe you really want to see Team USA or the Dominican Republic smash their underdog bracketmates instead.
The remaining games start at 11 am ET and progress basically all through the day, so there’s a lot of WBC action if you’re so inclined.
