Plunk Everyone

Japan won it's second consecutive WBC championship last night beating Korea 5 to 3 in 10 innings, but the real victory of the tournament goes to Korea's Shin-Soo Choo, who also plays for the Cleveland Indians, who lead the WBC in total HBPs with 3. Congratulations Shin-Soo Choo!

Choo collected his third plunk of the tournament in the semi-finals game against Venezuala, on a pitch thrown by Carlos Vasquez. In the finals, Japan was the only team to get plunked - Hiroyuki Nakajima got hit by Chang Young Lim in the 10th inning, but that was after Japan had scored their two runs, so the plunk didn't contribute to the final score. Through the course of the tournament, 42 batters got hit by pitches, but they only scored 7 runs as a result of those plunks. None of those plunks occured with the bases loaded.

Also, Korea led the tournament in total HBPs on the batting side with 7. Australia got 6 plunks and 5 baseballs hit Mexico. Japan and USA got hit 4 times, Venezuela and Cuba took 3 plunks, and the Netherlands, Panama, Puerto Rico and Italy all got hit twice. The Domincan Republic and Canada only got hit once a piece, and every baseball missed China, Taiwan and South Africa.

21 of the 42 WBC plunks were recorded by players who are not on Major League 40-man rosters, and American League players slightly edged the National Leaguers in the HBP category 11 to 10. The Phillies and Indians tied with 4 plunks each by their players.

On the pitching side, Ismel Jimenez of Cuba led the tournament with 3 batters hit, and helped his Cuban team to a total of 8 to lead the tournament. Mexico and Venezuela hit 5 batters, and the Dominican Republic managed to hit 4 batters without making it out of the first round. The Netherlands and China hit 3 batters, and the US, Puerto Rico, South Africa, Italy, Japan and Korea threw 2 plunks each. Taiwan only hit one batter as did Australia. Canada and Panama were the tournament pacifists with no batters hit. This leads to the possibility that there is an inverse relationship between the number of plunks a WBC team throws and the number of occurrences of the letter A in the country's name.



Here's the final totals for pitchcounts for Major Leaguers (some may be non-roster invitees):

MLB Team	Pitcher	WBC Team	Pitches	IPOuts	Rough Outings*
ARI	Travis Blackley	AUS	74	17	0
ARI	Tony Pena	DOM	22	6	0
ATL	Jorge Campillo	MEX	135	26	0
ATL	Javier Vazquez	PUR	127	28	0
BAL	Jeremy Guthrie	USA	106	11	1
BOS	Fernando Cabrera	PUR	34	6	0
BOS	Enrique Gonzalez	VEN	152	29	0
BOS	Javier Lopez	PUR	35	7	0
BOS	Daisuke Matsuzaka	JPN	249	44	0
CHA	Matt Thornton	USA	61	14	1
CHN	Ted Lilly	USA	98	19	0
CHN	Carlos Marmol	DOM	42	5	1
CIN	Johnny Cueto	DOM	71	14	0
CIN	Ramon Ramirez	VEN	103	16	0
CIN	Pedro Viola	DOM	13	3	0
CIN	Edinson Volquez	DOM	58	9	0
CLE	Rafael Perez	DOM	35	9	0
COL	Manny Corpas	PAN	31	6	0
COL	Jason Grilli	ITA	62	11	0
COL	Ubaldo Jimenez	DOM	65	12	0
DET	Armando Galarraga	VEN	143	22	0
DET	Fu-Te Ni	TPE	26	4	0
FLA	Christopher Leroux	CAN	34	5	0
FLA	Matt Lindstrom	USA	33	6	0
FLA	Rick VandenHurk	NED	127	16	1
HOU	LaTroy Hawkins	USA	47	11	1
HOU	Roy Oswalt	USA	201	34	0
KCA	Lenny DiNardo	ITA	14	0	0
KCA	Joakim Soria	MEX	20	6	0
LAA	Francisco Rodriguez	MEX	32	6	0
LAA	Scot Shields	USA	75	13	1
LAA	Rich Thompson	AUS	48	9	0
LAN	Jonathan Broxton	USA	71	12	1
MIL	Mark DiFelice	ITA	45	12	0
MIN	Luis Ayala	MEX	68	10	1
MIN	Jesse Crain	CAN	18	4	0
NYA	Damaso Marte	DOM	26	6	0
NYN	Elmer Dessens	MEX	81	20	0
NYN	Pedro Feliciano	PUR	42	9	0
NYN	Nelson Figueroa	PUR	110	22	0
NYN	Oliver Perez	MEX	149	20	1
NYN	J.J. Putz	USA	45	9	1
NYN	Francisco Rodriguez	VEN	98	17	1
OAK	Brad Ziegler	USA	76	10	2
PHI	Drew Naylor	AUS	20	1	1
PHI	J.C. Romero	PUR	51	8	0
PIT	David Davidson	CAN	17	3	0
PIT	John Grabow	USA	68	13	1
PIT	Ian Snell	PUR	122	24	0
SDN	Heath Bell	USA	82	11	2
SDN	Jake Peavy	USA	110	15	1
SEA	Felix Hernandez	VEN	147	26	0
SEA	Carlos Silva	VEN	177	37	1
SFN	Jonathan Sanchez	PUR	119	20	1
SLN	Adam Ottavino	ITA	50	9	0
SLN	Dennys Reyes	MEX	43	5	1
TBA	J.P. Howell	USA	44	10	0
WAS	Joel Hanrahan	USA	80	15	0
WAS	Saul Rivera	PUR	48	11	0

*-Outings with more than 20 pitches per inning

Labels: WBC