![]() “Andy Pettitte has got the pedigree of having the most wins in playoff history (19) with a bunch of World Series rings (five) in the most hostile environments,” Wainwright said. The early signs against Cuba suggested a worsening trend, but DeRosa and Pettitte never even called down to the bullpen. He had been just OK in his previous WBC start against Great Britain, allowing five hits in four innings, including a homer by Trayce Thompson. But you’re in so much trouble, you feel like you’re treading water.”Īctually, Wainwright looked as if he might go under. “Sometimes you just forget, they haven’t hit anything hard. “I was just like, he needs a reset here,” Pettitte said. The walk to Despaigne, from a veteran pitcher who generally maintains a low walk rate, is what persuaded Pettitte to visit the mound. But it helped him to hear from Pettitte, 50, what he already was thinking, that the contact against him mostly was soft, that he just needed to regroup. But in the first, with Wainwright trailing 1-0 and facing a bases-loaded, none-out predicament, the position Team USA faced was disconcerting.Īt first Pettitte wondered if a mound visit made sense, asking himself, “Should I even go out there?” Wainwright, 41, said he probably experienced 100 similar moments in his 17-year major-league career. In the end, DeRosa said, “it could not have gone any better.” Wainwright pitched four innings, Mikolas four, Loup one. He particularly wanted to stay from his most effective bullpen arms - Ryan Pressly, Devin Williams and Jason Adam - and preserve them for the potential championship game. The manager, however, said before the game he wanted to use no more than three relievers. DeRosa also had starters Miles Mikolas and Brady Singer available out of the bullpen. relievers who did not appear against Venezuela. Kendall Graveman and Aaron Loup were the only U.S. Others would have balked at three appearances in four days if DeRosa had wanted to go back-to-back with their pitcher and then use him in the WBC final. Some of the major-league clubs do not want their relievers worked back-to-back days. Team USA used six relievers to beat Venezuela the previous night, limiting DeRosa’s options for Cuba. His second HR of the game joins Ken Griffey Jr., the current USA hitting coach, as the only players with multi-HR games in U.S. Wainwright failing to escape the first inning was not, could not, be part of the plan. pitchers again had Pettitte and manager Mark DeRosa in a state of high anxiety. But entering the World Baseball Classic semifinals, the restrictions major-league clubs imposed on U.S. What fans likely will remember most about Team USA’s 14-2 triumph were the four homers by the U.S., including two more by Trea Turner. Nothing to worry about, really, until Wainwright issued a bases-loaded, run-scoring walk to Cuba’s cleanup man, Alfredo Despaigne. But the next two singles, a dribbler Wainwright initially thought was going foul and a tapper that rolled under his glove when he was thinking double play, were laughably soft. True, the first of three straight infield hits by Cuba was 103.4 mph off the bat.
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