Dutch Don't Die!

It's late, and I've got a job interview in the morning, so I'll make this quick: I may have tried to kill of the baseball team from the Netherlands after their loss to Puerto Rico yesterday, but they refused to go. Today, they repeated their shock-the-world upset of the Dominican Republic in one of the more exciting baseball games I've seen in a long time -- impressive, considering it was 0-0 game heading into the 11th inning. The D.R. team scored once in the top of the 11th, which seemed to clinch it (they hadn't allowed an earned run to the Dutch in 19 innings, and the Netherlands looked very feeble at the plate all game long). But the Dutch came back to score twice in the bottom of the inning (with quite a bit of help from some shoddy Dominican D).

Now the D.R. is out -- a national embarrassment for the popular favorite -- and Team Dutch goes against Puerto Rico (and the Giants' Jonathan Sanchez) for the pool title.

In the later game, Cuba narrowly avoided a shocking defeat to Australia, coming back to win 5-4 on a 2-run HR with 2-out in the 8th. Now, Cuba moves on, and Australia plays Mexico to see who moves on to round 2 and who goes home.