USA's Wins Big, Braun Homers

This really isn't related to the WBC or Team USA, but man am I burned out. Seriously, new admiration for Winks and bloggers everywhere who do this day in and day out. And I've only done it ONE DAY.

On to the game. If you love baseball, and especially offensive baseball then....WOW what a game tonight. It had all kinds of scoring as Team USA beat Venezuela 15-6. Florida Marlins closer Matt Lindstrom came on in relief of Roy Oswalt and started throwing 99 mph heat. He would get the win in the contest that looked in the beginning like it would be a dog fight until the end.

That all changed when Victor Zambrano, who relieved a tough pitcher in Armando Galarraga, would take the mound in the 6th inning up 3-2 and give up 8 runs. It started with a Youkilis single, then eventually a bases loaded walk to score the first run with no outs. Rockies catcher Chris Ianetta would then rip a double that would score two, followed later that inning by a Dustin Pedroia double that scored two more. Kevin Youkilis would come up again in the 6th and this time hit a home run giving USA the 10-3 lead.

Venezuela would come back some in the bottom half of the 6th with a Carlos Guillen blast and 2 runs off of young reliever Brad Ziegler. The scoring would continue for Team USA in the 7th as during a Jimmy Rollins interview Adam Dunn would absolutely crush a pitch into the right field second deck. It was sort of comical as in mid sentence Jimmmy Rollins said "Oh, My".

In the top of the 8th Team USA would score three more runs. And get one in the 9th as well off a Ryan Braun homer. That would have been awesome except ESPN's coverage went out for like 2 minutes while the homerun took place, so no one saw it live. Sadface. But it is cool that Ryan Braun got in on the party.

Braun didn't start the game in left, super utility guy (and much more awesome player now that he is with Cleveland and not with the Cubs) started the game in left and eventually moved to third when Braun came into the game 6th inning.

One thing I was kind of surprised about was the fact that the announcers didn't bring up and political overtones that came with this game and the America-hating Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, who happens to be a baseball junkie. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they didn't because baseball and sports in general should transcend politics, but I figured it would be an easy downtime talking point. Kudos to Dave O'Brien and Rick Sutcliffe.

Anyway, the semi convoluted schedule is here. And this is the Boxscore to the game.

Team USA will now face the winner of Venezuela and Canada/Italy match up on Wednesday, March 11th at 5:30 pm on ESPN. You can see why I said kind of convoluted, as the game is meaningless to USA getting to the next round. USA is already going to advance. But with a double-elimination set up, Venezula would get a chance to win possibly 2 in a row to win Pool C and create a different match up in the second round.

BREWER UPDATE OF NOT REALLY HUGE PROPORTIONS: Eric Gagne was released to rehab his sore shoulder. He probably wasn't going to make the roster anyways.

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