PHOENIX \u2014 Team USA\u2019s star-studded roster includes both reigning Cy Young Award winners, but it will be the league\u2019s foremost workhorse who will take the mound in their World Baseball Classic pool play opener on Friday.<\/p>\n
Team USA manager Mark DeRosa announced that San Francisco Giants ace Logan Webb, who has led the National League in innings for three consecutive seasons, will start against Brazil at Daikin Park in Houston. AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, making his only appearance of the tournament, is scheduled to face Great Britain on Saturday. NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes will start March 9 against Mexico.<\/p>\n
New York Mets rookie Nolan McLean is the current choice to start March 10 against Italy, although McLean was absent from Monday afternoon\u2019s first full-squad workout at the Giants\u2019 Papago Park minor league complex. McLean remained at the Mets\u2019 camp in Port St. Lucie, Fla., because he was feeling under the weather.<\/p>\n
If the tournament goes the way the Americans hope, they\u2019ll clinch a berth in the quarterfinals before they take the field against the Italians.<\/p>\n
Anyone who surveyed the scene at Papago Park on Monday would have to like USA\u2019s chances. Aaron Judge and Cal Raleigh smacked batting practice home runs on one field, Skenes hummed fastballs off a bullpen mound, and everywhere you looked, some of the game\u2019s greatest players were rubbing elbows in the kind of sun-baked, 91-degree heat that usually doesn\u2019t arrive in the Sonoran Desert until April or May.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust incredible,\u201d Judge said. \u201cIt\u2019s been a great first day. Get a chance to see these guys out on the field, all in the same clubhouse, man, it\u2019s pretty special. There\u2019s a lot of great players, a lot of greatness in this room. It\u2019s cool to see this kind of jelling on the first day already.\u201d<\/p>\n
The players got together for a team dinner Sunday night and another one is scheduled. They held a team meeting prior to Monday\u2019s workout, and Judge, who was named the team\u2019s captain, was cajoled by Skubal into giving a speech to the group.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only can we talk about players, but our coaching staff, too,\u201d Judge said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got All-Stars, Silver Sluggers, World Series champs, (pitching coach Andy) Pettitte, one of the best postseason pitchers ever. It\u2019s just some of the best baseball players that ever played the game in one room, so it was pretty cool to get a chance to address them and talk with them. That\u2019s what I kind of started out with: It\u2019s just an honor to be here in front of you and be wearing the same uniform as you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
How star-studded is this group? The unofficial team photographer is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Ken Griffey Jr. didn\u2019t need a credential around his neck to have full run of the place with his DSLR.<\/p>\n
\u201cI keep telling him, \u2018Man, grab a bat. We need you,’\u201d Judge said. \u201cSo maybe we\u2019ll get him in the cage one of these days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skenes is scheduled to start Tuesday\u2019s exhibition game against the Giants at Scottsdale Stadium, likely throwing two innings. Left-hander Matthew Boyd is scheduled to throw two innings as well. Relievers Griffin Jax, Gabe Speier, David Bednar and Mason Miller are also scheduled.<\/p>\n
The Giants will start young rotation hopeful Blade Tidwell, who might have the nastiest slider in the organization. Bednar\u2019s younger brother, Will, is a former Giants first-round pick who is in minor league camp as a non-roster player and is expected to appear as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cHeaters away from the Giants,\u201d DeRosa said with a laugh. \u201cNobody gets hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Assuming that Team USA advances past pool play, Skenes and Webb have both expressed their intent to make multiple starts. With McLean\u2019s illness, Skubal\u2019s departure after pool play and Minnesota Twins right-hander Joe Ryan forced to bow out because of a lower back injury, it\u2019s a bit uncertain how DeRosa and his coaching staff would plot out the pitching in a potential championship game.<\/p>\n
But they\u2019ll have a three-time Cy Young Award winner standing by and ready for anything.<\/p>\n
The WBC is the final encore for Clayton Kershaw, who announced his retirement last year and contributed during the Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 back-to-back World Series championship run.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, I don\u2019t know if I would have it in the tank to pitch for a full season again, so I\u2019m really at peace with that decision,\u201d Kershaw said. \u201cAnd this is kind of a weird one-off thing, but you can\u2019t really turn down this opportunity. So it wasn\u2019t easy to get ready for this with no motivation for a season, but I actually am in a pretty good spot with my arm, and I\u2019ll be fine. So if they need me, I\u2019ll be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three years ago, the WBC ended in epic fashion when Shohei Ohtani struck out his Los Angeles Angels teammate, Mike Trout, to clinch the championship for Japan.<\/p>\n
Could it come down to Kershaw vs. Ohtani this time?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for our country\u2019s sake, it\u2019s better if I don\u2019t,\u201d Kershaw said, smiling. \u201cBut look, if it\u2019s a pinch and they need me, I\u2019ll do it. It\u2019s pitch away, hope he flies out to left. Don\u2019t throw it in his barrel. I can\u2019t imagine if it comes down to USA vs. Japan, with the arms we have, that I\u2019ll be needed. But I\u2019ll be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeRosa said adding Kershaw to the roster made sense because they needed depth in case of injury or illness and no active pitcher would want to be idle at a time when they need to build their pitch count for the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we put our heads together, he\u2019s one of the best to ever do it,\u201d DeRosa said. \u201cThe guys would want to be around him, learn from him, and in case of emergency, he\u2019d be out there and kind of reset us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skubal, an impending free agent, will limit his participation to a 50-60 pitch start against Great Britain before returning to the Detroit Tigers in Lakeland, Fla. DeRosa and Judge both expressed their full support of that plan, with the manager saying he was \u201cover the moon\u201d that Skubal agreed to participate at all when he\u2019s in line for a record-setting contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guy\u2019s about to make half a billion dollars here in the next offseason,\u201d Judge said. \u201cFor him to put it all on the line for his country and show up for us, he may be pitching one game, but there\u2019s a risk in everything you do. For him to take that risk and be here with us, the boys love it. They were hyped in the clubhouse. It means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge added, with a sly grin, \u201cMaybe we can squeeze another game out of him. I don\u2019t know. We\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team USA was just starting to get acquainted on Monday, but Judge said that they are already bonding over their shared pride of putting on the red, white and blue uniforms.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of weird seeing my name on the back of the jersey to start, but I flipped that right over and looked at the front where it said USA,\u201d Judge said. \u201cAnd for me, it just really hit home. I just started thinking of \u2014 some of us, probably, have people who served in the military in our family, or people we know that serve in the military.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that was the first thing I thought of: there\u2019s individuals out there that have sacrificed everything for this country to allow me to have my wife safe at home and my daughter safe at home, and I get a chance to come out here and play this game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX \u2014 Team USA\u2019s star-studded roster includes both reigning Cy Young Award winners, but it will be the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":515649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-515648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/515649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=515648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=515648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}