I’m not going to say that we panicked too much here. The United States' loss to Italy last night was embarrassing enough. Still, manager Mark DeRosa, not understanding the rules of the tournament, had the potential to be an all-time American baseball blunder. This is where we think the Italians. For anybody who hasn’t been paying attention, the United States needed Italy to beat Mexico to move on to the knockout stage of the World Baseball Classic. They also would’ve moved on if Italy had scored four or more runs in a nine-inning game, but that would’ve been a very complicated thing to pay attention to. Thankfully, Italy took care of business, finishing pool play undefeated for the very first time.
I’m sure they will try to play it cool, but every single US player and coach just breathed one giant sigh of relief. They have avoided the disaster, and they had a chance to use their mulligan. Some teams don’t get Mulligans in this tournament, so the United States should be counting their lucky stars (and stripes). The reality is that, as awful as last night‘s loss was, the US now finds itself with a rather favorable draw going forward. They will face Canada next, as our neighbor from up north seeks revenge for what happened on the ice during the Olympics. No disrespect to Canada, which has made it farther than they ever have in this tournament, but I’d rather have a match-up with Canada than go up against Puerto Rico or that powerful Dominican Republic lineup. There is a chance that if the US were to get by Canada, they would then have a rematch against Italy. This all sets up perfectly for the US to redeem itself in this tournament.
It’s all hugs and handshakes right now because the US is moving on. I’m not somebody who’s going to say that it’s a complete and utter failure and a disgrace to the country if they don’t win the tournament. There are some really good teams in this World Baseball Classic. With that said, you can’t lose two in a row, and that includes beating Canada. You get to the semifinals, and somebody knocks you off, it’s frustrating, but it’s understandable. No one expected Canada to even be in this position, so if you have to go toe-to-toe with them and come up short, you’re going to have four years of explaining to do before the next World Baseball Classic. US team has no excuse now. They have multiple days to reset before their next game, which will take place at 8 PM on Friday. They lucked out geographically as well, as they won’t have to travel for their next game. They’ll be staying in Houston to take on Canada.