MIAMI \u2014 If the United States needs to shut the door on its first World Baseball Classic championship since 2017, Mason Miller may not be in the mix to close out a victory.<\/p>\n
San Diego Padres manager Craig Stammen said Monday he has been in touch with his team\u2019s All-Star closer about his usage in the tournament, and that a decision will be made on his availability for Tuesday\u2019s WBC finale depending on how he feels ahead of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot ruled out, not decided,\u201d Stammen said at the Padres\u2019 spring training camp in Arizona. \u201cHow we do with every pitcher, we evaluate them after their outing, see how they feel and then calculate when their next outing\u2019s going to be. So he\u2019s in that same boat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller, who has thrown 35 pitches over 100 mph and recorded 10 strikeouts in four innings, said during USA\u2019s workout at loanDepot Park on Monday that he wants to pitch, \u201cbut I\u2019ve got to be smart about it, too.\u201d Were Miller to pitch Tuesday, it\u2019d be his third appearance in five days.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they trust me,\u201d he added. \u201cSo if I say I\u2019m good to go, they\u2019re going to be supportive of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stammen acknowledged that taking that decision out of USA manager Mark DeRosa\u2019s hands could cause blowback, but he also noted that player management is difficult for all teams in the WBC.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re managing that team right now, but they\u2019re not the manager of the player overall in Major League Baseball,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cDefinitely a tough position for him and Andy (Pettitte) managing the pitching staff. They\u2019ve done a great job so far. They\u2019ve been very communicative with us and understanding of our situation with Mason and, I\u2019m sure, with the rest of the pitchers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Miller has secured saves in two of the United States\u2019 victories, including Sunday night, when his last pitch to the Dominican Republic\u2019s Geraldo Perdomo was a called third strike to end the game.<\/p>\n
Garrett Whitlock, who pitched a perfect eighth inning before Miller took the ball in the ninth, also has a save in the WBC.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Ken Rosenthal contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 If the United States needs to shut the door on its first World Baseball Classic championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,462,82,148306],"class_list":["post-541322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}