The Art Neuro Weblog

Olympic Baseball - Day 7
Italy beat Taipei in an upset, 5-4. Italy came back from behind in dramataic fashion in the top of the Ninth proving for once why they were ranked Europe's no. 1 Baseball power.
Taiwan started strongly with Chih-Chia Cheng pitching a strong 6 innings with 9 strikeouts, issuing 3 walks but also allowing 3 runs on 2 homeruns. However it was Chien-Fu Tang who blew the save in the Ninth.

Japan thumped Canada 9-1. Back to form after their shock defeat against Australia, Japan put on a hitting display scoring 9 runs on 11 hits and only allowing 1 run on 5 hits to the Canadians. Yoshinobu Takahashi and Kazuhiro Wada both nhomered for Japan. I'm a little surprised at how Canada's bats didn't do more damage to the Japanese pitching, but starter Tsuyoshii Wada pitched a strong 7 innings with 7 strike outs issuing 3 walks and scattering only 3 hits; that would do it any lineup.
See below for a general comment on the pitching staffs.

Australia beat Greece 11-6. Australia came from behind in an explosive 5 run Seventh inning to take the game out of the reach of the Greeks. A typical Aussie win where the bats do the damage; but a closer look tells us that the Greek pitching staff walked 4 and struck out only 1, and that the Australians only got 10 hits for their 11 runs. Brett Roneberg hit his 4th homer of the tournament. I also have to report that my favourite punching bag and Yankee-cast-off Clay Bellinger did go 2-for-5, though it was futile today.

Cuba beat the Netherlands 9-2. Cuba relayed through their shaky pitching staff to hold the Dutch to 2 runs. Over all, they struck out 7, walked 3, and gave up 5 hits for the 2 runs, but the innings pitched show the Cubans were willing to go to the Bullpen early and often as possible to keep the 'run scored against', low.

In a quirk of Olympic Baseball, when teams finish with an equal record, it is the team that allows the fewer runs over all the games that gets to go ahead. As of this writing, Canada, Cuba and Japan all have a 4-1 record, but the Canadians who have only given up 12 runs (how they did this, I do not know) lead the table ahead of Cuba (15), and Japan (16). Japan's 46 strike outs in 43 innings pitched while issuing 13 walks is a tip off that they have the most dominant staff. Canada's staff ERA is 2.05 but after 44 innings, they only have 20 strike out; but it has to be said that they only have 8 walks. This probably makes them more vulnerable to contact teams, of which there are plenty in the tournament; for instance, our very own Australians. It also has to be noted that Australia's batting is ranked 3rd in the tournament after having faced Cuba AND Japan. There is a heck of a lot more hitting stats to come from the Aussies. oi, oi,oi.

For all you Moneyball types (of which I am proudly one of them), Japan leads the team OBP at a .384 clip while slugging .601, and they too have faced Canada, and Cuba, so that was not compiled against weak teams except may be the Netherlands. Cuba's OBP is.354, Australia is at .332, Netherlands at .326, after which there is a sharp fall to the rest of the group. What should be worrying for Australia is their anemic .384 SLG. That's plain abysmal. Again, The leader in walks are Canada and Greece 18, The Netherlands 17 and Japan, 16. It's amazing to think those 18 walks (plus 1 HBP) are bolstering the Greek OBP to a mighty (not!) .259 from a horrific batting average of .168.

- Art Neuro