The MLB postseason is still more than a month away, but don’t worry: if you need some intense, elimination-based baseball in your life, the Women’s Baseball World Cup is here. It begins on Wednesday, August 22, and will culminate in a championship game on August 31.
The 2018 Women’s Baseball World Cup begins today
If you don’t want to wait until October for playoff baseball, well, we’ve got the World Cup for you.
There are six games today, with a pair at 10 a.m. ET (Japan vs. Dominican Republic and Venezuela vs. Chinese Tapei), another pair at 2 p.m. (Canada vs. Hong Kong and Australia vs. Cuba), then two more at 6 p.m. (Netherlands vs. South Korea, United States vs. Puerto Rico). The games will be streamed online at USSSA, and we’ve got the full schedule for the tournament ready for your perusal as well. That also explains just how the format for this World Cup works, so get clicking and reading and learning.
Japan is the favorite, as this Baseball America story explains. The tournament is being held in America for the first time ever, with Team USA ranked third in the pre-Cup rankings: there’s a real chance they can win it all, even if Japan hasn’t let anyone else win these tournaments for quite some time.
We’ll be covering this tournament from start to finish, and have a feature coming later today as well: Natalie Weiner, making her SB Nation debut, will explain with help from Team USA’s players themselves why it’s so difficult for women to play baseball in this country.
- In this week’s Grant Land, our hero describes why baseball fights are a danger despite how entertaining they can be, using a real-life example from the Dodgers-Giants scuffle from last week. Also, Minor League Baseball team names are making parody unnecessary.
- Pat Burrell was written out of The MEG’s universe (The MEGiverse?), and we can’t let that stand: Pat the Bat needs to be in the fourth MEG movie. These are our demands.
- The Nationals are officially packing it in on 2018 after trading Matt Adams and Daniel Murphy, but they did still manage to down the Phillies 10-4 on Tuesday after doing so, which must be pretty embarrassing for Philadelphia.
- Here are 12 hidden images in sports logos, a few of which are for MLB teams.
- Not everyone loves the way baseball is played today, and this isn’t meant in some “back in my day” effort-level argument. It’s more about the nature of the game in 2018, and worth reading even if you might disagree.
- Didi Gregorius is on the DL for the Yankees, adding yet another significant player to that list. Aroldis Chapman is getting an MRI and David Robertson has a tender shoulder,, so New York might not be done losing players to injury yet.
- The O’s rebuild should begin in their outfield, writes Camden Chat.
- Let’s Go Tribe wonders why Cleveland has been so good after the All-Star break in recent seasons.
- Here’s a look at how the new extra innings rules have worked in the minors, and if we could see them in the majors some day.
- Here’s Jay Jaffe at FanGraphs on Justin Verlander and the 200-win club.
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