Does this mean he will not be the starter?
I know he has incredible stamina so it wouldn't surprise me if he did start...
I know he has incredible stamina so it wouldn't surprise me if he did start...
2. Where to begin? How about exactly where the USA checked out of the tournament: The fourth inning when manager Davey Johnson inexcusably allowed a 2-1 lead to turn into a 6-2 unconquerable deficit. Just as he let Jake Peavy let a game get away in Round 2 to "get his work in," Johnson let ineffective starting pitcher Roy Oswalt let the tournament slip away.
"I still thought he was throwing good enough to stay in the ballgame," Johnson said.
Huh? The inning began like this: single, single, error on a smash that should have been a single, sacrifice fly. Now Japan led, 3-2, with a runner on first, one out and three straight lefthanded hitters due up. Johnson had a 13-man pitching staff with three lefthanders in his bullpen. And not only did he not bring a lefty in the game, he had no one even warming up.
Aki Iwamura promptly tripled off Oswalt for another run. Munenori Kawasaki singled for another run. Ichiro Suzuki did ground out, but Hiroyuki Nakajima doubled for another run. Now it was 6-2. The game was lost without Johnson ever getting a lefthander in the game, against the part of the lineup stacked with left-handers. When he did get left-handers in -- John Grabow, J.P. Howell and Matt Thornton -- they threw 3 1/3 scoreless innings.
"I tried to get Grabow up," Johnson said, adding that Grabow had some tightness in his groin that caused him to need more time. "It was my fault," Johnson said. "It took him longer in the cool weather to get loose."
The greatest strength of the USA team was supposed to be the depth of the bullpen, which could match up lefties and righties against hitters better than any other team in the tournament. And yet, the USA essentially went home without going to its strength.
The lesson is the United States needs a manager and a general manager -- GM Bob Watson and executive director Paul Seiler must take as much responsibility as the man they hired -- who will run games with urgency, who will pay attention to details, who will manage to win games and not manage egos. They need someone like Larry Bowa, Buck Showalter or Brad Mills.
3. The fourth inning debacle wasn't the only place where the USA management team let down the players. Consider:
? Johnson let left-handed hitters Adam Dunn and Curtis Granderson bat against lefthanders with runners on base in the fifth and sixth innings. Both made outs to end the innings. Johnson could have used Evan Longoria against the lefties, but he didn't in part because he only had three players on the bench and didn't want to go into that shallow pool so early in the game. And why did he have only three reserves? Seiler and Watson thought it wasn't necessary to replace all of their injured players to have a full roster. They basically decided they had no use for Grady Sizemore, who could have made the short flight over from Arizona. Great.
? Johnson did pinch hit for Granderson in the eighth with one out and the score 6-4. But he managed to mess that situation up, too. It was then that he sent up Longoria to hit -- against a right-hander. Wait. It gets worse. Johnson had Victorino ready to hit, but suddenly changed his mind at the last minute.
"I didn't know exactly when I was going to hit," Longoria said. "Then he said, 'You're going up right now!'"
With no warning, without having taken an at-bat in the tournament ("My heart was racing," Longoria said), and having to face a righthander after two openings passed against a lefthander, Longoria struck out.
Incredibly, Johnson said he was looking for a home run -- the wind was howling from left to right; no ball that wasn't launched from a cannon was going out to left field -- and -- if you can follow this -- that Victorino would have batted with two runners on but that Longoria was his man with one man on.
? To keep the game at 6-4, Johnson did not give the eighth inning to J.J. Putz (suffering from a headache), Jonathon Broxton, Scot Shields or Brad Ziegler. He gave it to Joel Hanrahan. So much for the mighty USA bullpen. Hanrahan walked the first batter he faced, and Japan cashed in with a three-run inning.
Yankees trade for shortstop David Eckstein
The New York Yankees surprised the baseball world early this morning by dealing star prospect Austin Jackson for David Eckstein as an emergency, last minute replacement. The move was necessary after Derek Jeter joined his team USA teammates in ritual suicide on the grass of Dodger Stadium last night.
Brian Cashman seemed shellshocked when addressing the media this afternoon. "Honestly, I don't know how this slipped past us," he said, referring to the suicide clause that was included in each player's paperwork concerning participation in the WBC. "It was one fucking line sandwiched between the jargon concerning pitch limits and replacement player eligibility."
"Derek called me from his cell phone right after the game, when clubhouse attendants began passing out swords. He sounded confused and scared, he didn't know what was happening and just wanted to come home." Cashman said that he frantically looked for a loophole in Jeter's contract, but to no avail. "This certainly changes a lot of things for us."
Eckstein is expected to be a more than capable replacement for Jeter, having accumulated a World Series MVP award in his time with the St. Louis Cardinals, as well as a .364 average in World Series play.
MLB officials report that Jeter's head will be delivered to his parents later this week and funeral ceremonies are being scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. When reached for comment, teammate Alex Rodriguez explained that while he would like to attend the funeral, he has a day trip planned for the Baltimore Aquarium that afternoon. "I'll have to see if the swim-with-the-sharks tickets are refundable, before I can commit to anything," he explained.