After a three year wait, the World Baseball Classic is nearly with us once again.\u00c2\u00a0 Japan and China will get things underway in Tokyo on Thursday with a 9.30 start for British fans.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the non-Tokyo based national teams will be playing some warm-up matches against Major League teams this week.\u00c2\u00a0 Several of these can be followed on MLB.tv or Gameday Audio and, although they are not going to be intensely competitive, they should be enjoyable contests nonetheless.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The match-ups start today.\u00c2\u00a0 Canada’s Major League team, the Blue Jays, will take on the Canadian national team at 18.05 GMT, while Derek Jeter will make many fans rub their eyes with disbelief as he looks set to play against the Yankees for the U.S. from 18.15.\u00c2\u00a0 Gameday Audio fans can also listen to the Dominican Republic’s game against the Marlins (18.05).<\/p>\n
There are eleven national team\/MLB team games tomorrow, six of which can be followed on MLB.com.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately the games involving our European representatives (the Netherlands v the Reds and Italy v the Marlins) are not among them.\u00c2\u00a0 You can listen to Canada against the Phillies, the U.S. against the Blue Jays, Venezuela versus the Astros (all three starting at 18.05) and South Africa taking on the Angels (20.05).\u00c2\u00a0 Puerto Rico’s game against the Rays begins at five past midnight, while insomniacs and\/or night-shift workers can watch Australia’s clash with the Mariners from 02.05.<\/p>\n
Thursday’s Gameday Audio selection includes three national team\/MLB team games.\u00c2\u00a0 Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino might be playing for the U.S. against the Phillies (17.05), but Albert Pujols has already stated that he will not be suiting up for the Cardinals against his home nation: the Dominican Republic (19.05). Finally, the Aussies face the Brewers from 20.05.<\/p>\n
The last such game of the week sees the Aussies in action again, this time in an MLB.tv clash against the White Sox.\u00c2\u00a0 First pitch is scheduled for 20.05.<\/p>\n
These games should provide something a bit different to the normal Spring Training contests.\u00c2\u00a0 At the very least, they are a good way to get into the World Baseball Classic spirit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After a three year wait, the World Baseball Classic is nearly with us once again.\u00c2\u00a0 Japan and China will get things underway in Tokyo on Thursday with a 9.30 start for British fans.\u00c2\u00a0 However, the non-Tokyo based national teams will be playing some warm-up matches against Major League teams this week.\u00c2\u00a0 Several of these can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[70,66],"class_list":["post-2207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball-coverage","tag-gamedayaudio","tag-mlb-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2207"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5253,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207\/revisions\/5253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}