MIAMI — 1. WBC announces new casualties. Team USA and Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun will not play in Tuesday night's elimination game against the Americans, according to Brewers general manager Doug Melvin. Brown felt a muscle strain in his right side during an at-bat against the Netherlands on Sunday. Brown said Monday that he hopes to re-evaluate his injury and play in the game on Tuesday, while Melvin told SI.com that he is keeping the left fielder out of the game for precautionary reasons. he said.
“He's not playing [Tuesday]” Melvin said. “We will evaluate it afterwards.” [Tuesday’s] Play the game and go from there. Either way, win or lose, he'll be back here and we'll be able to see how he's doing. ”
The Brewers are training in Arizona. If the U.S. wins on Tuesday, it will advance to the semifinals in Los Angeles on Saturday. A loss would mean the Americans would be eliminated from the tournament.
With the loss of Brown, Team USA manager Davey Johnson will have only two players on the bench, one of whom will be a backup catcher (Brian McCann or Chris Iannetta, whichever is not a starter). The other reserve player will likely be Shane Victorino or David Wright. Johnson said he plans to play nine innings with Mark DeRosa at “third base, left field, or both.” He also plays shortstop with Derek Jeter. That means you could put Jeter and DeRosa on the left side of the infield behind left-handed starter Ted Lilly, with Jimmy Rollins (probably the DH) and Wright in the key. position.
If DeRosa plays third, Victorino will likely play left field in place of Brown. Victorino, a center fielder for the Phillies, played in 63 major league games as a left fielder. (Johnson could also trade Adam Dunn, Team USA's regular right fielder, to left field and put Victorino in the more spacious right field at Dolphins Stadium.) Curtis Granderson could be in center field by choice. Set. He told Johnson before the WBC that he was nervous about playing the corner outfield position.
2. Dustin Pedroia and Chipper Jones are already out with Team USA due to rib cage injuries. Pedroia returned to Red Sox camp on Saturday and is expected to take batting practice by Thursday and appear in a spring training game by Saturday. Jones re-aggravated the injury he sustained in the first round of the WBC fight, which he said was “pretty much worse.”
“One of the things we need to figure out is why these injuries seem to occur more on the U.S. team than on other teams,” Melvin said. “That would be interesting to know.”
“This is a nightmare for GM,” said another general manager.
Brown speculated that Asian clubs benefited from extended pre-WBC training camps, while Latin American players benefited from winter ball. “It's probably a case of too much too fast,” Brown said.
3. Several American players have privately complained about the WBC's playing and training conditions. They suffer from too many holidays and too little work. Training on my off days was very short. When Red Sox and Team USA's Kevin Youkilis was asked what could be done to make the tournament more player-friendly, he came up with an idea worth considering.
“There is one site,” Youkilis said. “Instead of clubs flying all over the place, all the travel and off days are cut out. If you play in one venue, it's almost like a Super Bowl. If you win, you get a day off, if you lose, you get a day off. Now you can make the next play.'' Two losses and you're out. They could play anywhere, whether it's Los Angeles or Mexico City or Toronto, but they could probably play all the games in one venue in 10 days instead of three weeks. ”
Brown said he liked the idea and suggested Los Angeles and Anaheim could host tournaments if construction of a second stadium improves logistics. Either way, for this tournament to be a huge success, the WBC needs to listen to the players, not the sponsors and marketers. If you make your tournaments as player-friendly as possible, you'll get the best players and the best competition, and everything else will flow from there. Let the players, not the suits, lead the tournament.
“If you take care of the baseball side of things first, everything else will take care of itself,” Melvin said.
4. Check this out. The United States played its WBC home game in Florida on Sunday night, with a lineup of stars including Jimmy Rollins, Derek Jeter and David Wright, and a crowd of 11,059 fans.
Just a few hours ago, the New York Yankees played their regular spring training exhibition game in Florida, drawing 10,727 fans.
And Team USA had a meaningful elimination game, beating the spring training game by a whopping 332 total players. The U.S. players were disappointed by the crowd, just as they were on Saturday, when a clear majority of fans were rooting for Puerto Rico. So much for home field advantage.
5. Meanwhile, at Monday's game between Venezuela and Puerto Rico, Dolphin Stadium was filled with emotion as people waved flags, danced and cheered as Venezuela won 2-0 despite walking six batters. This game drew 25,599 fans, which wasn't that many, except they weren't casual fans. “It felt like the World Series,” Puerto Rico catcher Ivan Rodriguez said.
“Pretty amazing,” Puerto Rico first baseman Carlos Delgado said. “25,000 Latinos went wild. It was so cool…we beat the hell out of Port St. Lucie.”
Felix Hernandez showed red-line emotion on top of his evil deeds and looked every bit the Venezuelan ace. Frankie Rodriguez was great again, starting with a 95 mph fastball and a devastating third pitch, an 82 mph changeup. The match was played at a very high level, especially for mid-March.
It was a night when I actually felt sorry for the American team. Americans don't get anything close to this kind of passion in their own country. On Tuesday night, they face Puerto Rico again and have all the ingredients to define them as a “road” team. Jonathan Sanchez, representing Puerto Rico, will face Lilly in the final elimination match. The winners advance to the semi-finals and the losers return home. Still, Sanchez will take comfort in knowing the crowd has his back.
And that pressure will fall squarely on the United States. Johnson began the tournament declaring his club to be the team to beat. And while the WBC doesn't necessarily need the U.S. to reach the semifinals in order to promote the tournament, if the goal is to grow the game internationally, losing again in the second round would mean most It means another tournament will be held without attracting the attention of a fickle baseball audience. This event will be attended by American spectators, including American players. Chipper Jones has already slammed the WBC format and said he would never do it again under the same circumstances. He wouldn't want players returning to a major league team to tell their teammates it was a negative experience. That's why the United States needs to win this game. Instead of selling the WBC to the world, we need to sell it to the United States.
