Olympic Baseball and Softball Betting
Olympic USA Teams put together a winning streak at the right time and qualified for the Olympic medal round with a victory Tuesday over Chinese Taipei in Olympic baseball in Beijing.
And the softball team is already in the gold medal game after a 4-1 victory early Wednesday over Japan that was closer than the score would indicate.
The baseball team beat Chinese Taipei 4-2 in a tight contest Tuesday, and Wednesday’s game against Japan won’t mean too much in the standings, as both have clinched berths in the medal round. If the U.S. wins, they will face Cuba in a semifinal. If they lose, it’s unbeaten South Korea. Cuba has one loss, while South Korea is unbeaten. The U.S. lost one-run games to both.
Because the game doesn’t matter as much, hard-throwing college junior-to-be Stephen Strasburg, who has emerged as the U.S. ace and is likely the No. 1 pick of next year’s MLB draft, won’t pitch against Japan in the final game of round-robin play. Instead, he’ll likely throw in the semifinal. Same goes for Japanese phenom Yu Darvish.
The Americans will likely hold out slugger Matt LaPorta (Indians), who suffered a concussion after being hit by a pitch against China. And they hold out hope Jayson Nix (Rockies) can return from an eye injury to play in the medal round. The four favorites advanced out of pool play, and I’ll stick with my original predictions.
In softball, Crystl Bustos hit a three-run homer in the ninth inning to knock off Japan. The Americans (8-0) scored four runs in the ninth and extended their Olympic winning streak to 22 games. It was Bustos’ fifth homer of the games, a record. Australia and Canada will play for the right to face Japan, and the winner of that game will play the U.S. for the championship in what could be the final softball game ever played in the Olympics.
