Mexico!

1. Mexico whupped Canada to guarantee winning Pool B.

2. I guess I totally didn't understand how the tiebreakers work. Here's the official article from worldbaseballclassic.com

If the Americans win on Friday, they'll be 2-1, as will the Mexicans and Canadians, but Canada will lose out because of the initial three-way tiebreaker: runs allowed divided by innings played in the games only involving the U.S., Mexico and Canada.

Mexico allowed three runs against the U.S. and Canada, the U.S. allowed eight runs against Canada and Mexico, and Canada was pelted for a whopping 15 runs by Mexico and the U.S.

3. From the same article:

Losing to the Mexicans, 9-1, with a chance to wrap up a berth in the second round a day after beating the Americans is akin to the 1980 "Miracle on Ice" U.S. hockey team having lost the gold medal to Finland after it defeated the vaunted Soviet Union. It didn't happen then, but it happened to the Canadiens on Thursday. [emphasis mine]

No wonder Mexico won, they were playing the Habs!

4. ESPN's announcers, who included Rick Sutcliff said that Canada was eliminated. Uhm, well, America could lose today.

5. Man, did the rebroadcast of the Canada/Mexico game cut coverage. They shoehorned a 3 hour game into 2 hours. I missed Morneau swinging and striking at ball four in the 4 walk/3 K 6th. Italy/DR was fit into a 2.5 hour window.

6. Two more Cantu pictures: