That Adam Stern inside-the-parker was amazing. As was the Tek grand slam. And as someone on SoSH points out, the Sox players’ (Ortiz, Tek, Stern) total line in the World Baseball Classic: .750 / .786 / 2.667 for an incredible 3.452 OPS. Funniest shot was when they cut to Stern a few minutes later and he still looked breathless. And then on the MLB.tv feed they kept the studio sound on in between innings, and the announcers were talking about the mercy rule (“well, they haven’t got the 10 runs”)
I think this upset is good for the WBC - I doubt the US gets eliminated, unless it totally chokes against South Africa, and it’s great to see that the supposed ’easy’ route to the next round is being challenged. And if the goal of the WBC is boosting support for the competition outside the US, there’s no better way than to see a favourite getting seriously challenged…