Mark DeRosa Exposed Himself as a Dumbass Managing Team USA
The United States no longer controls its destiny in the World Baseball Classic after losing 8-6 to Italy on Tuesday night and is now waiting on the result of today’s game between Italy and Mexico to determine if they will advance to the quarterfinals. The upset loss against Italy was big news, but Team USA manager Mark DeRosa made it far worse after his comments on MLB Network earlier on Tuesday, when he exposed himself as a dumbass.
DeRosa returned as manager for the United States in this year’s WBC, his second consecutive appearance as the skipper after his runner-up finish in 2023. The former Chicago Cubs player sounded extremely comfortable discussing Tuesday night’s matchup against Italy after the United States beat Mexico 5-3 on Monday. That victory brought Team USA to 3-0 in pool play and in his appearance on MLB Network hours before the Italy game, DeRosa not only confirmed that he was going to start a handful of backups he said the following.
“Ton of respect for Italy. It’s weird. We want to win this game even though our ticket is punched to the quarterfinals.”
Ughhhhhhh, no.
After the loss to Italy DeRosa claimed that he misspoke during that MLB Network interview, but we can all see that he clearly thought the United States did in fact clinch a spot in the next round of the WBC. It becomes clearly obvious when Cal Raleigh, Bryce Harper, Alex Bregman and Brice Turang were all of a sudden out of the starting lineup and on the bench for the United States.
Instead, DeRosa put in Will Smith, Paul Goldschmidt, Ernie Clement and Gunnar Henderson. To their credit, Smith did go 2-for-4, and Henderson homered, but that came in the sixth inning with the United States trailing 8-0 at the time. On the pitching side of things, DeRosa didn’t seem to have any sense of urgency as he used Ryan Yarbrough after rookie Nolan McLean allowed three runs in three innings.
Thanks to Pete Crow-Armstrong’s two home runs, a three-run shot in the seventh and a solo bomb in the ninth, the United States had some life against Italy, but now they’ll need help on Wednesday night to get DeRosa off the hook.
I mean, this was total bullshit. DeRosa said he misread the calculations…so yeah he thought they were through to the quarterfinals.
All right, so here are the scenarios for who advances to the quarterfinals. Assuming Italy vs. Mexico does not go into extra innings.
The most straight forward scenario for the United States to advance is if Italy beats Mexico. That would give Italy and the United States a ticket to the next round.
If Mexico beats Italy AND scores six or more runs, then Mexico and the United States advance.
If Mexico beats Italy AND scores less than five runs, then Mexico and Italy advance.
By the way, yes the tiebreakers for pool play in the WBC is ridiculous. A Mexico win creates a three-way tie and the way the WBC goes about breaking the tie is based on, “fewest runs allowed divided by the number of defensive outs recorded in the games in that round between the teams tied,” according to the tournament’s rules.
Italy vs. Mexico will begin shortly after 6 p.m. central time, Wednesday night in Houston.
By the way, MLB is trying to cover up DeRosa’s fuck up by taking down the video of his appearance on MLB Network’s Hot Stove show. Little late there.