The level of play of the Korean team was a revelation?

ANAHEIM -- The World Baseball Classic was supposed to celebrate the internationalization of the game. It turns out that the game has been internationalized so thoroughly that it is going to be extremely difficult for the team from baseball's birthplace, the good old US of A, to win the tournament.
It was one thing when the Japanese, and more recently, the Koreans, were producing, for instance, better automobiles than the U.S. You could chalk this up to disciplined, diligent, ingenious peoples alertly seizing their opportunities in the global market place and simply give them credit.
It is a little harder to take when they defeat us in our national game, as the Koreans did Monday night at Angel Stadium by a convincing 7-3 margin. Team USA, as in the first round of pool play, will be scrambling to advance after this defeat. As serious as this is for American fans, it is not actually the larger point made by the World Baseball Classic.
The U.S. is now 1-1 in this pool, 3-2 overall, but merely 2-2 when playing against teams that are not using 17-year-olds. Against reputable global competition in the Classic, the U.S. is a .500 ballclub.
This might be the cause for national chagrin, the U.S. playing like one of many instead of the obvious class of the field. One game has been lost to Canada, one game has been lost to Korea, and one game could have been lost to Japan, if not for an unusual and, ultimately incorrect, umpire's call.
But without endless rationalizations, there is another side to this issue. Boiled down, it is this: These other nations are playing much better baseball than we knew, or possibly even imagined.
After a time, these results become trends rather than flukes. In the last two U.S. games, you saw the East Asian teams both play fundamentally sound baseball, including flawless, sometimes brilliant defense and what we in America like to call "the little things." They advance runners when runners need to be advanced. They routinely take the extra base with alertness and aggression.
They are better at this than the Americans, or at least this team of Americans. You saw this vividly in the Korea game. In the third inning, the Koreans put two on with no outs and asked their No. 5 hitter, Ji Han Song, to sacrifice. He did and a single subsequently produced a run.
In the fourth, the Americans put two on with nobody out. First Mark Teixeira was up, and you apparently can't ask him to bunt, because he's a slugger. He struck out, no one was advanced, and even though one out later Chase Utley produced a single, the U.S. did not score in this inning.
Team USA has lived by the home run and died without it. Not counting the game against South Africa, and there are reasons not to count it, the Americans have scored 15 runs in this tournament. Ten of those runs have come from home runs.
This sort of thing would have worked, if the quality of the opposition pitching wasn't very compelling. But that has not been the case. The only team that the U.S. exploded against was South Africa. We can all agree that the American team not only can hit, it is absolutely loaded with hitters. Therefore, the only explanation left to us is that the teams from Mexico, Canada, Japan and Korea all have at least enough superior pitching to contain this team, and in two cases, to defeat it.
U.S. manager Buck Martinez, suitably gracious in defeat, complimented every aspect of the Koreans' play, but concentrated most on the job done by the six Korean pitchers. These six gave up nine hits and six walks, but for the most part, in the most critical spots, they made the pitches that had to be made.
"Tonight, Korea made great pitches when they had to," Martinez said. "You have to commend their pitchers. You have to tip your hat to them."
The level of play of the Korean team was a revelation, although not a particularly pleasant revelation for Team USA. First baseman Seong Yeop Lee turns out to be a slugger of the first class, leading the Classic with five home runs.
The shortstop, Jin Man Park, took the U.S. out of an inning, turning what looked like a base hit in the hole by Chipper Jones into a double play. It was the kind of thing you could only expect to see from, perhaps, Omar Vizquel, who, in all candor, isn't American either. The second baseman, Min Jae Kim, made a superb stop on a smash by Derek Jeter that saved another run, because the next hitter, Ken Griffey, Jr., homered.
The Koreans are unbeaten in this tournament. After watching them beat the U.S. for nine innings, you understand that this record is exactly what it is supposed to be. They pitch, they catch and they perform the fundamentals without flaw. When they need an offensive lift, off the bench comes a Major Leaguer, Hee-Seop Choi, with a three-run home run.
At the end of the day, it is possible that Team USA is still the best national team in the world, and that the results of these games have been aberrations. But it is just as possible that the globalization of the game has already occurred to such an extent that these results are just what can happen when two very good baseball teams play each other.
No, the U.S. team is not a perfect assemblage of baseball talent. But the real message of this tournament is on the flip side. The international teams at this point are all fully equipped to win a baseball game against anybody on any given night. Monday night, was Korea's given night and the Koreans didn't waste it.
From a fan's perspective, OK, perhaps American dominance in baseball is slipping away. But the plus for baseball is that the global game is obviously growing and improving. Or, look at it this way: We are all, in one way or another, proud to be Americans. But Monday night, some of us left Angel Stadium proud to be Hyundai owners.
Mike Bauman is a national columnist for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.