USA dominates Chinese Taipei at World Junior Baseball Championship

Baseball Betting Lines

07/27/2010 - Thunder Bay, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - For a team expecting to play right through the end of the tournament, the United States is doing a good job of preserving energy.

Phillip Pfeifer (1-0) dominated a hot-hitting Chinese Taipei squad over seven scoreless innings of two-hit ball as Team USA cruised to a 10-0 victory on Monday night at the World Junior Baseball Championship in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

It was the second straight game the U.S. has won by mercy, after blanking the Italians 10-0 in an abbreviated seven innings in accordance with International Baseball Federation rules.

After opening the tournament with a 4-2 win over Australia, the United States (3-0) appears to be hitting its stride which doesn't bode well for the other 11 countries participating in the 18-and-under event featuring some of the best young baseball talent in the world.

"No matter what team, we're going to want to win and win bad, and they're going to want to beat us," said the 18-year-old Pfeifer.

The 6'0" lefty, who went 16-0 this year en route to a third straight high school state championship with Farragut, was unhittable against a Chinese Taipei team that entered the game with a tournament-best .418 average.

"Our pitching guy told us to throw inside and once they adjusted to that, we started moving off the plate and using more off-speed to throw them off balance," said the phenom from Knoxville, Tenn.

"But when they hit me hard, my guys were there to make plays, that's what it came down to."

The truth is, he wasn't hit hard at all.

Pfeifer was perfect through four innings, utilizing a deceptive changeup and devastating curveball to freeze hitters before finishing with eight strikeouts in front of a near-sellout crowd featuring several major league scouts.

His team scored seven runs in the third inning off Chinese Taipei pitcher Chung Weng (0-1), who proved to be no match for a U.S. junior team loaded with players destined for the big leagues.

"We faced a good pitcher that left some balls up and we were able to take advantage of that," said U.S. hitting coach and former major leaguer Brian McRae.

"I think what we were able to do offensively helped [Pfeifer] because he was able to challenge the hitters and go right at them."

Weng lasted just 2 1-3 innings, giving up six hits and five runs with one strikeout, a walk and a hit batter.

After second baseman and Cleveland Indians' third round draft pick Tony Wolters doubled down the line to score catcher Elvin Soto, Francisco Lindor connected on the Americans' first home run of the tournament, hitting a rocket off the pole in left to give his team a 3-0 lead they never looked back on.

Another five straight hits, including a pair of two-run doubles from Brian Ragira (Texas Rangers, 30th round) and Christian Lopes, and the U.S. found themselves out in front 7-0 after three before handing Chinese Taipei its first loss of the tournament.

Several Americans had multi-hit games, including first baseman Blake Swihart (2-for-3 with two RBI and a homer) and Lindor, who also went 2-for-3 with a pair of runs and a stolen base.

Lindor is now 5-for-10 for the tournament, leading the team with five runs, four RBI and nine total bases.

"It felt pretty good to jump out on the pitcher," said the talented shortstop. "In the first game we didn't hit like we usually do but that's part of baseball, not every game we're going to get a lot of hits.

"I wasn't really looking for it [the home run]. In my mind I was thinking hit a line drive to the opposite side. Hopefully we keep hitting throughout the tournament like we're hitting now."

McRae said he thought his hitters were pressing a little in their first game with the Aussies but now that they're finding their groove, he thinks the sky is the limit for a junior national team that hasn't won a world title since 1999.

"I liked the fact they made adjustments and they were able to go gap to gap and stay within themselves and not try and do too much," he said. "Offensively, we know that if we can score some runs early that eases the pressure on our pitching staff.

"Our pitching is pretty damn good."

The U.S. continues its run towards the medal round on Tuesday afternoon when they take on Venezuela in Pool A action.

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Michael Vick is back, Brett Favre isn't and the NFC East remains the best division in the NFC, maybe in all of football.

As players start to gather for the start of another season, some things change and some stay the same in the world of the NFL.

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The NFC East has been the dominant division in the National Conference for a while, despite limited playoff success, save for the New York Giants surprise Super Bowl win two seasons ago.

Hell, there's a generation of kids in Texas who have never seen the Cowboys win a playoff game (last win was in 1996).

But collectively, the Giants, Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins (well, maybe not so much the Redskins) are as good as a division gets in an NFC conference that has struggled to stay competitive with the AFC side.

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Looking over the NFL betting odds at online sports book MySportsbook.com we see the top three teams listed to win the NFC Championship are all from the NFC East:

Dallas Cowboys - 7 - 1

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Slotting in behind these three are two teams from the NFC North: the Minnesota Vikings (15-2) and the Chicago Bears (10-1).

Again, despite the lack of recent playoff success, the Dallas Cowboys are popular with the sports betting community, as they hold 14% of all the money wagered on who will win the NFC Championship.

So far, the New York Giants are the bettors' favorite to represent their conference in the Super Bowl, as they have 24% of the overall NFC Championship betting volume.

And what about the Philadelphia Eagles? For the most part, the Eagles had a very productive offseason, the kind that could bring them back to the top.

They had a good draft adding the likes of WR Jeremy Maclin and RB LeSean McCoy.

Unfortunately, the team received a blow when long-time defensive coordinator Jim Johnson passed away on Tuesday.

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Plaxico Burress is gone and with him all the bad publicity surrounding the gun in the sweatpants incident, but can they replace him in the offense?

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