Biggest Upset in International Baseball

The World Baseball Classic ended over a month ago, but it's never a bad time to look back. In fact, this years WBC had one of the biggest upsets ever in international baseball.

The Dominican Republic came into the tournament as the favorite to win their pool, and possibly win it all with their stacked lineup and power house team. Then there was the Netherlands, who were expected to do nothing other than put 9 men on the field.

In the first game of the tournament, the Netherlands took an early 3-0 lead with the help of a few defensive errors by the DR. Sidney Ponson and the rest of the Netherlands pitching limited the powerful offense to just 2 runs, as they won the game 3-2. If that already wasn't a big enough upset, the Netherlands would do it again, in dramatic fashion.

Facing elimination, the Dominicans found themselves against the Netherlands again. The winner would advance to the second round; the losers were done.

The game was a pitchers duel. The game was 0-0 until the Dominicans took a 1-0 lead in the 11th inning when the Netherlands's right fielder, Gene Kingsale, misplayed a ball with two outs. With Carlos Marmol on the hill, things looked good for the Dominican Republic.

But the Netherlands's were resilient. A double to lead off the inning, and Kingsale was at the plate with a chance to redeem himself. He singled and tied the game.

The Netherlands would be down to one out with Yurendell de Caster at the plate. He hit a groundball to first, looking like the game would be sent to another inning, however first basemen Willy Aybar made an error, and Kingsale scored the winning run. Another upset for the Netherlands as they advanced to the second round in dramatic fashion, shocking the world.

Because the Netherlands upset the Dominicans, not once, but twice, that makes it the biggest upset in international baseball.

To see IRONPIGPEN's biggest international upset, please visit his site.

2 comments:

IRONPIGPEN said...

Yurendell De Caster got cut by the Detroit Tigers in AAA spring training...

Mike said...

The upsets by The Kingdom of the Netherlands were incredible.
They should have the WBC every two years.

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