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islandsluggers t1_jbghz8f wrote

For those who don’t know much about baseball the heavy favorites are: Dominican rep, USA and Japan. The teams who could potentially win are: Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Korea, Cuba, Kingdom of the Netherlands, Mexico

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kslusherplantman t1_jbgl2we wrote

Ohtani hit 2 3-run home runs in the opener.

Japan is to be feared solely because of him… let alone the rest of the Japanese badasses

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jokerj4513 t1_jbgo2vh wrote

Japan hasn't played their first game yet though

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Juzaba t1_jbgt9pg wrote

The teams who have first round byes usually do some exhibition matches against local teams for practice and marketing purposes. For example, Team USA will scrimmage against the San Francisco Giants and Team Canada against the Chicago Cubs.

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DJLJR26 t1_jbi4ew4 wrote

They dont have a bye. They have to go through the same pool play as everyone else. The games hosted in asia start a few days earlier to give those teams that advance extra time to travel for the knockout stage in the us.

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Juzaba t1_jbi504x wrote

I thought there was a play-in round to get the last slot of each Pool. Maybe I misunderstood that bit of the structure.

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DJLJR26 t1_jbkbgbm wrote

Ahh, i see. There is but those qualifiers already occurred and arent part of the formal tournament.

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run0utn0w t1_jbgplvk wrote

It was against a fairly new NPB arm though, likely not on the same level as those he’ll be facing.

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Redditor_Since_2013 t1_jbhivu5 wrote

Nah. Great Britain sweeps the tournament and replaces soccer with baseball as the national sport

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BowwwwBallll t1_jbi2et1 wrote

They can’t beat the USA in soccer, might as well try baseball.

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Vordeo t1_jbiwbp8 wrote

Tbf using cricket bats instead of baseball bats is a pretty big advantage.

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G0PACKGO t1_jbhvwo3 wrote

I mean they lost to the brewers 8-2

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Desblartes t1_jbi0jhn wrote

I think he meant big ball players referring to their height, as in they are very tall- given that they're dutch.

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