HOUSTON — Following the United States’ stunning 8-6 loss to Italy on Tuesday night, among the biggest upsets in the 20-year history of the World Baseball Classic, manager Mark DeRosa said he misspoke earlier in the day when he said Team USA had advanced to the tournament’s knockout round.
In an appearance Tuesday morning with Matt Vasgersian and Harold Reynolds on “Hot Stove” on MLB Network, where DeRosa works as an analyst, he said of the game against Italy: “We want to win this game even though our ticket’s punched to the quarterfinals.”
Team USA’s ticket was not punched — and its fate now depends on the results of Italy and Mexico’s contest Wednesday night, the final game of the WBC’s Pool B.
Should Italy win and finish pool play at 4-0, the United States would advance as well. If Mexico wins, however, it would finish at 3-1 along with Italy and the U.S. In that case, the tiebreaker that would determine which two teams advance to the quarterfinals considers runs allowed per out recorded. If the Italy-Mexico game goes nine innings and Mexico wins and scores five or more runs, the U.S. — the odds-on favorite entering the tournament — and Mexico would advance. Should Mexico win while scoring four or fewer, it would advance alongside Italy.
DeRosa said he knew that Team USA had not clinched a quarterfinal berth and was informed when he arrived at Daikin Park on Tuesday of his mistake.
“Just sitting on ‘Hot Stove’ at 9:45 in the morning with Matty and Harold and misspoke,” he said. “Bottom line.”
Team USA spent multiple hours in the clubhouse following its 5-3 victory against Mexico on Monday and, DeRosa said before the game against Italy, “There’s some guys dragging today.”
With Team USA resting a number of starters (including Bryce Harper and Alex Bregman), emergency reliever Clayton Kershaw warming up during the eighth inning and DeRosa not pinch running for Paul Goldschmidt as Team USA mounted a comeback after falling behind 8-0, the perception that the team believed it had advanced took root as DeRosa’s comments spread on social media.
Kershaw was warming up, DeRosa said, because WBC rules limit pitch counts and he wanted to avoid using closer Mason Miller if reliever David Bednar reached 25 pitches. Kershaw, DeRosa said, “was the only guy we had left.”
Italy had put Team USA in such a compromised position with an early deluge of runs. A team made up mostly of American major leaguers with Italian heritage, Italy nevertheless entered the game against the powerful U.S. team as distinct underdogs. That changed in the early innings, with three home runs and 4⅔ shutout innings from veteran right-hander Michael Lorenzen staking Italy to an 8-0 lead it never relinquished.
“This is one of the best days of my life,” said Italy manager Francisco Cervelli, a 13-year major leaguer who won the 2009 World Series with the New York Yankees. “I’m proud of my guys. They’re young, but they play like they’ve been in the big leagues for 10 years. Their focus was there. And, you know, everybody in Italy should see this. We’re doing it for them, for the kids. It can happen. It’s possible.”
Though Team USA’s players did themselves a favor by tagging on six runs in the final four innings, the game registered as a distinct letdown for a group that considered itself the favorite to win the championship.
The game, with a pro-U.S. crowd of 38,653, started well for the American team, with New York Mets rookie Nolan McLean striking out the first three Italian hitters and registering two more outs in the second before Chicago White Sox catcher Kyle Teel dumped a home run into the Crawford Boxes in left field for a 1-0 advantage for Italy.
Following a hit-by-pitch, McLean surrendered a loud home run to White Sox prospect Sam Antonacci, digging Team USA its largest deficit of the tournament. It grew two innings later when Teel walked and Kansas City outfielder Jac Caglianone launched a home run to right field — replete with a tremendous bat flip — to stake Italy a 5-0 lead.
“Despite having the major league players that we have on this team and the high prospects and all that type of stuff, nobody on this team comes in with an ego, expecting to be treated differently because who they are, what they’ve done throughout their career,” Caglianone said. “And I think that’s something that a lot of these guys are going to take pride in. You kind of put whatever you did aside, and we’re all fighting for one common goal, and that’s to win and to keep going as long as we can and wear this uniform.”
Lorenzen, 34, now on his seventh major league team, locked down a dangerous Team USA lineup that included Bobby Witt Jr., Gunnar Henderson, Aaron Judge and Kyle Schwarber. While Lorenzen was not supposed to pitch — Italy was planning on piggybacking him with Aaron Nola in what it considered a must-win contest against Mexico — Lorenzen mixed his pitches brilliantly and shut out the U.S. squad.
Lorenzen pitched against Team USA only because his team, the Colorado Rockies, did not want to disrupt its rotation plans for the regular season by having him throw a day later against Mexico.
“It’s kind of weird throwing against your own country,” Lorenzen said. “But it was an incredible night.”
“Just sitting on ‘Hot Stove’ at 9:45 in the morning with Matty [Vasgersian] and Harold [Reynolds] and misspoke. Bottom line.”
Team USA manager Mark DeRosa, on his remark earlier Tuesday that his team had already punched its ticket to the WBC quarterfinals
By the time Team USA scored its first run in the sixth inning on a Henderson home run, Italy had tacked on three more unearned runs and put together a lead that was too big even for a spirited comeback. Chicago Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong punished a three-run home run in the seventh inning, Boston Red Sox outfielder Roman Anthony lashed a run-scoring single in the eighth and Crow-Armstrong homered again in the ninth to close the gap. But with Witt on first base after a single, Boston reliever Greg Weissert struck out Henderson and Judge to seal the victory for Italy.
The top five hitters in Italy’s lineup went 0-for-22 — and Teel, the No. 6 hitter, left the game with a strained hamstring suffered while legging out a double. He will be replaced on the roster, Cervelli said, by Andrés Annunziata, a 20-year-old who plays in Italy’s Serie A league, a stark contrast to a U.S. team filled with MVPs, Cy Young winners, All-Stars and future Hall of Famers.
Team USA will gather at its hotel Wednesday to watch the 7 p.m. game between Mexico and Italy that will determine its fate and hope that the ticket-punching takes place 36 hours after DeRosa mistakenly suggested it had.
“You always like having your destiny in your own hands, and we had it right in front of us,” said Judge, the Team USA captain. “We knew we were focused on what we had to do today. Italy is a great team, and they definitely showed it today. But yeah, whatever happened yesterday has nothing to do with what happened today.
“Now, we just need a little luck, and we’ll see what happens.”
