Aaron Guiel is the starting leftfielder for Team Canada apparently, which is mildly shocking, considering I didn't even know he was Canadian. (Or is it Canadien?) Guiel tripled and scored today in Canada's 8-6 triumph over the United States. Our beloved Matt Stairs had an even bigger game with a single, walk and two RsBI as Canada built an 8-0 lead. Not to rain on anyone's parade, but given the prominent role played by Al Leiter in today's game, its a little hard to consider this anything beyond an exhibition. Is that dude even on a ML roster?
Stairs is hitting .286/.500/.429, doing what he does, showing up and getting on base. Guiel's posted a similarly solid .333/.500/.833. Granted, these stats are only from two games, including one against (cough, cough) South Africa, a team that according to Baseball Prospectus has less than a one-in-a-hundred-million chance of winning the "Classic."
[As I write this, Randall Simon is doubling for The Netherlands against Puerto Rico... which for some reason is one of the strangest things I've ever seen.]
Meanwhile, Justin Huber posted an 0-for last night for Australia...
I'm really not sure what to make of all this, but its good to see baseball on TV...
Meanwhile, the (split squad) Royals fell to Milwaukee, 7-6 in 10 innings. So, at full strength the Royals obviously would have won 12-3 in 5 innings or something. Right? Right?