Hello, and welcome to Blackboots and the Baseball Podcast with a British twist.
I'm your host this evening, Roussaisum. I am talking to you live from
the press box in Chase Field as we prepare for Game two of the World
Baseball Classic of GB versus Canada. But I'm delighted to be chatting with my
earstwhile colleague gave about Game one against the USA. Do apologize if there's a
bit of background noise. There is obviously music in the stadium and other people
around us, who I think, we're very daft. We're recording a podcast
here. So gav that was a good game. Yeah, it was a
fantastic game. It was a fantastic day. I sort of feel a bit
drained now because the last six months it has been working up to that game
and suddenly it arrived, and suddenly the players were on the field with Trey
Turner and Mike Trout and Mooky Betts, and yeah, it was it was
a long day and it was a fantastic day. It was. It was
probably the best result we could have expected. Yeah, I think I think
I got to agree with that. I think the heart was wanting a GB
victory. In my head, I was kind of actually just hoping that we
didn't get mercy ruled. If I'm perfectly honest, I wanted a team to
be able to show not just us, but like the rest of the baseball
world, that this is actually a good set of players and what GB can
put out there are is of a quality that deserves to be here. And
I think not only have they shown that from that first game, I think
they've shown that maybe this US team isn't all Just because you can follow us,
a team of all stars together doesn't necessarily mean that they're gonna hit well
and amazingly and pitchwell and amazingly for every single game. So it shows you
what one game baseball and a single elimination that we'll get later on will do.
Yeah. True, But I think I think maybe GB did contain us,
and I think someone else is going to get punished by them. I
think the power of those facts, they could just go batting practice on some
team, So I wouldn't be supposed if another team in the pool does get
mercy ruled, so and just place it wasn't us. Yeah, if we
quickly for anyone who didn't see what happened. Tracey Thompson got a first inning
homer. US lost myself slightly in the press box after saying that I would
behave the entire time. I was on my feet and caring like a madman.
That is true. You were the only person in the press box cheering
like a leptn madman. The USA loaded the basis in the first but failed
to score. They got one back, and then they got two back,
and then Carl Schauber hit the long home run to make it five one.
I think, yeah, um, we were still in with a good chance.
We've made a few sloppy defensive plays, so that really cost us.
I think that was the big difference between it. And then we had Shawn
Knowles come on and he just looked like a rocketman, a superstar. Yeah.
That that that triple that he hit to go I think was somebody put
it out. There was ten points six flight seconds to go from first to
third. I just can't, you know, looking at the field in front
of us, I just can't see how you can do that in your ten
seconds. It's incredible. Yeah. If I think kind of like to go
back to kind of some of those first few winnings like GB did make mistakes
which the US punished, and I think it is worth while noting the iving
bands Wally Pitch absolutely amazingly to start that to start the game, and got
squeezed by the umpire. Talking down to some of the GB coaching staff this
morning, by their calculations, they got something like twenty to twenty five calls
wrong during the game. That's for both sides, and they put it at
about a plus seven calls to the US in a game, so that's not
too far off what can happen in games. It's just unlucky that it goes
against GB. It goes against them in the inning which they then make the
mistake, and that just cost them if they'd can't managed to keep it one
nail after three for a Vans to manage to close that innings, and the
pressure just creaked a little bit further. We don't know what that would have
done to this US team. They were already there are already some fans who
were getting a little bit testy, even though after it was only like two
or three innings where they were behind. We obviously had also had the constant
question of was Mookie Beets being mood or was he being booed? Me and
Gab pretty much thought it was booing the whole entire time, but some people
reliably informed us it was a moo and not a boo. Your thoughts,
Gab, Well, it was interesting because when the gb players came up on
the big screen, they were getting obviously getting booed, there was no question
about that. And then when Mookie came up, it sounded like a boot.
I asked a few people in the crowd and some said, no,
no, no, it's it's something which we do, it's a move.
But that didn't explain why Peter Lonzo was getting booed and a couple of the
others were getting booed. But what I must say is I was really impressed
with when the national anthems were being played. That was observed by the US
fans impeccably. Yeah, I think something that we've seen, maybe not to
the great taste of English fans in sports elsewhere, but but yeah, that
was done and handled very well. It was It was a big different atmosphere
from the game earlier on. If any of you guys had seen that or
girls, the Mexico game was very much This stadium felt like a home game
for Mexico. This felt like a home game for the USA, but it
didn't feel quite like it had like the same atmosphere. Everybody was wearing like
most people wearing jerseys for their clubs that they follow. There are a few
USA jerseys. Everybody who's team Mexico was team Mexico. And I think when
GB get that game against Mexico in a few days time, I think it's
going to feel more like aul away a game than the USA, and so
it'll be interesting when we get to that. It will be really interesting.
I'm not here to the savning, but it'd be really interesting to see whether
it feels like a home Mexico game or a home USA games. Yeah,
I think it's gonna be a home Mexico game. I think there's going to
be more Mexican fans here here later on. There's certainly a lot more patriotic
indeed of the national team. But it'd be a remist us to give our
highlights of this game and not talk about the man with the hommatically sealed elbow
himself, Dan Cooper out there throwing two innings of one run ball against major
league competition, striking out major leaguers, like this is just it's just unbelievable
to see him do that. Like I'm I'm not an surprised when I see
the likes of Michael Peterson do well. I feel like he's still an in
affiliate system. He's we're now dubbing him British gas throwing one hundred million an
hour fast balls, like he feels like that's goin somebody's compete. It just
feels so odd, so much of a disconnect that when we see Coop just
continue to kind of get top talented players out throwing these eighty four mile an
hour sinkers, just getting them off balance. It didn't get as many ground
ups as we nominates there from Coop. There was a few popouts as well,
but yeah, it was just a phenomenal pitching performance in him and to
kind of for him to be able to be on the stage and be playing
against some of the people that he played ten fifteen years ago when he was
growing up going through the systems, like he struck out Lolan Arronado in college,
he spaced Mike Trout back in those days. So it was amazing for
him to have his moment to play against those players once again, because usually
if you're doing that, you're all ten year vets, whereas whereas Coop is
not quite the same level of ten year vet. It did show you his
composure, though, his confidence to come out in this incredible stage, dame,
if he's ever played in this environment before, and then he's got to
face Ernardo and Goldschmidt, and yeah, he just disposes of them so easily
that, Yeah, I think nerves could easily have played on a lot of
players. Let's talking to the guy down there from the Bahamas and he thinks
that that's what happened to Barry, that maybe nerves just got the better of
him because he didn't have the greatest game yesterday, Harry, you do?
I mean it's third Blase bj I had the same Barry four. He's known
as Barry to his mates obviously. Yeah, that's his new nickname, Barry.
Yeah. No, because he made a couple of defensive miscues and he
went over four three strikeouts. But he's a much better player than that.
Yeah, the guy who covers to Farmers, he was saying, you know,
he's much better than that, and I think he just just nerves got
the better of him. Yeah, so you know, when you see Coop
go out there and just made it look because that's what he does every single
week, it's fantastic. Yeah, definitely. I think it's it's worth noting
kind of like a few other performances, I thought, Jaden Rudd has had
another fantastic night. He made a slight misplay on one of the doubles and
then immediately like the ball afterwards to say, like that amazing. The baseball
adage of the ball will always find you that he just made that slight mistake,
and then the next next day, b he makes a great running play
to kind of keep make sure that the US don't add another one on.
It was it was a big league catch, wasn't It really was? And
I think all given to pecta that Jaden's been a late addition to this squad
because of Lucious not playing, and I think, yeah, he's and he's
earned his position in the few games that we've had, basically in warmups he
was, as far as I was concerned, one of the best hitters in
those games. And it's great to see him to be able to kind of
like perform on that sort of stage. We're just watching the guys hit some
BP in front of us, and there are actually hidding some some bonds,
so the ball is flying. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing to say
is that this this center field in Chase is cavernus. I think, not
even just on the center field. I think there was six catches on a
warning track last night. I think three for dB and three for the US.
We were where we were sat. We were definitely edge of the seat
a couple of times to check whether those were home runs. Yeah, certainly
we're a long way from home plate is today. We're much closer today.
But you said something about wasn't it four or five? Six of the seven
longest hits were from GV yep. So the guys were connecting yesterday and looking
at it now, they're connecting. I know this is only bad in practice,
but yeah, I'm feeling good about today. Yeah. I think sequencing
is always like the important thing. I think last night they didn't quite get
it right. They were owing five with runners in scoring position. The US
were three and fourteen as well, So kind of it shows you the chances
that they had, like they just the game goes a slightly different way.
It's just not quite timing those hits together. But yeah, I think they
showed a lot of things that we can be pretty confident that GB is gonna
gonna have a good go at Canada, have a good go at Mexico,
have a good go at Columbia. We have to face the Canadians best pitcher
today when Cal Puntrill, which, as a India a Canadians Guardians fan myself,
I know the quality of Cal and is somebody that I've been looking forward
to watch for quite a bit of this this season, so it'll be a
tough one for them to go through today. I think he might be the
best starter that they actually face in this tournament because of the other team is
probably putting out maybe they're weaker guys right, which it's I'm not saying it's
a must win game for Canada, but they must look at this as this
is the most winnable of the fixtures they've got and they, just like GV,
they want to win to try to secure their place in the next World
Baseball Classics. So yeah, this is going to be a dog fight.
But having seen how well they played yesterday, having seen how easy it would
be to erase some of those defensive miscues, and if we can get the
speedy guys on the basin anything as possible. Yeah, I think there's something
that the GB potentially also has, is the fact that they've played a game
Canada haven't. Like they're they're still maybe seeing themselves feeling what they can actually
do. So yeah, we'll be we'll be amazing what we can see from
Canada and GB going into this game. Oh, anything else to say,
Russ, Nope, I'm just going to say we managed to have a quick
chat with vans Wally as well, so you'll hear that just on the end
of this pod. And otherwise it's just I hope all of you boys and
girls at home enjoyed that first game. I hope you're all at watch parties
or have been at watch parties one of the time that you listen to this
for the next game. But yeah, we will continue to give you updates
as we have them for the game. Have a nice day. Yeah.
Yeah, So I'm say I'm here with fans on the field after game one
or here this before game two. First, Like, how did that feel
for you? Kind of like starting out on the mound representing TV in that
game? It was exciting, you know, Now, this is a game
that we've been looking forward to since last year. You know in Germany after
we qualified, you know, they shook up the brackets and then we saw
where we were gonna be head and that was here instead of Asia, and
they lined us up against those guys. You know, that's that's the biggest
platform you can get, is you know, the last winning team of the
WBC. Yeah, so let's go a little bit through that game. If
to all British fans, you were horrendously squeezed by by the up last night,
Yes, you're right. How do you how do you kind of think
about that, how it's going on, Like, how do you kind of
try and get that out of your head? Or is it any even in
your head at all? You just gotta know, like maybe this is his
zone. It's not good. You know, every every umpire's got a different
zone, and you know it's it's not the first time I've had a guy
back there with a tight zone. Um. You know, it's just about
how you respond. And you know, I'm the kind of guy that's going
to keep attack on the zone even if I'm not going to get certain calls,
because the hitters need to know that I'm not gonna not throw certain pitches,
so uh, it makes them uncomfortable and it allows the team to stay
in it. Yep. So obviously like you picked up some you've picked some
some strong how you strike out some some very like famous names. There's obviously
you played in them in the major leagues before. Um, how do you
kind of how does this team move on from this game? Because obviously you
guys didn't get the result, but you think you put a very good end
up kind of we'll show you what like pretty team g the GD team can
actually do. So what is to feel like as the next step for the
guy who's coming into this game against Canada and for the other two games?
I mean really realistically, you know, in this kind of tournament, you
know it's there's no uh, no easier games. You know, there's no
days off. You know, every you have to treat every team is saying
you know as if you know, don't they were those guys, Um,
but you know, I mean we shoved it. We can compete against the
best in the world, and and you know it's it was a close game,
you know, had we had some things go our way. You know,
that's a completely different game last night. Um, but as far as
today, you know, I think guys are, they're still hungry. You
know, we're not gonna love one game affect us and how we're gonna go
out and perform today. No spons