The 2013 World Baseball Classic's championship game will take shape Monday night when the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Dominican Republic meet in semifinals Game 2 for the chance to face Yadier Molina, Carlos Beltran, and Puerto Rico in Tuesday night's WBC finals. Obvious storylines aside—the Dominican Republic got the full brunt of honkbal-mania in 2009—the Dominican, 6-0 so far, comes into the game the favorite.
But being the favorite only means so much in baseball; they'll need a good start from Edinson Volquez in particular or else all that team strength won't much matter. Meanwhile, the Dutch have Jurickson Profar and Kenley Jansen on board for the stretch run.
You can handicap single-elimination baseball games all you want, and you might as well; it's March, and if you don't like college basketball there's nothing better to do. But both of these teams are credible World Baseball Classic contenders, and that means either of them could win. The only thing that's determined now, before their 8 PM CDT first pitch, is that Curacao names are much cooler than Dominican names. Sorry, Alejandro de Aza.