SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014 The United States wasted little time showing how potent its roster could be at the upcoming World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n
The Americans needed just three batters to take a 2-0 lead in the first inning of their exhibition game against the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday after Bobby Witt Jr. singled, Bryce Harper doubled and three-time AL MVP Aaron Judge hit a two-run single.<\/p>\n
The U.S. won 15-1 with a 19-hit performance in the 10-inning contest. Roman Anthony hit a two-run home run, Alex Bregman added a solo shot and Gunnar Henderson had a two-run double.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a great group of guys,\u201d Harper said. \u201dBobby Witt starting it at the top, being a table-setter up there for us. Obviously, one through nine we\u2019ve got a pretty good dynamic. We\u2019ve just got to continue to be good.\u201d<\/p>\n
National League Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes had a solid outing, giving up one run and one hit while striking out four over three innings. The right-hander gave up a leadoff double to Willy Adames, who scored on a groundout.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old retired his last nine batters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a spring-training game, but it\u2019s still surreal,\u201d Skenes said. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be exciting when we get to Houston and it\u2019s the real deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Left-hander Matthew Boyd followed Skenes, striking out four over 2 2\/3 scoreless innings. David Bednar, Mason Miller, Griffin Jax and Gabe Speier each threw a scoreless inning.<\/p>\n
The Americans are trying to win their second WBC title and first since 2017. Manager Mark DeRosa said he was thrilled that all the starters stayed in the dugout well after being taken out of the game, talking with their temporary teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look down the dugout, you\u2019re seeing Bregman talking to Roman Anthony, you\u2019re seeing (Tarik) Skubal and Skenes on the top step, you\u2019re seeing Judge and (Cal) Raleigh talking,\u201d DeRosa said. \u201cThat\u2019s what I wanted to create, the coaching staff wanted to create \u2014 an environment where these guys didn\u2019t want to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bregman \u2014 who lives in the Phoenix area \u2014 had several U.S. teammates over for dinner last night. He said 23-time U.S. gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps spoke to the group for motivation.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just shared what it takes,\u201d Bregman said. \u201cControlling the controllables and getting after it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. will play one more exhibition game in Arizona on Wednesday against the Colorado Rockies before traveling to Houston on Thursday to prepare for the group stage.<\/p>\n
San Francisco Giants ace Logan Webb will start the opener against Brazil on Friday. Two-time defending AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal is expected to start Saturday against Britain, followed by Skenes against Mexico on Monday.<\/p>\n
New York Mets right-hander Nolan McLean is tentatively scheduled to start on Tuesday in the final pool-play game against Italy, even though he\u2019s dealing with vertigo-like symptoms and hopes to join the U.S. in Houston. DeRosa said after Tuesday\u2019s exhibition that McLean\u2019s health was improving.<\/p>\n
Skubal is expected to make just one start for the U.S. before rejoining the Detroit Tigers for the remainder of spring training.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. \u2014 The United States wasted little time showing how potent its roster could be at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2379],"tags":[106,72,5,138,49,2561,4,66,4657,396,2562,4820],"class_list":{"0":"post-605035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-white-sox","8":"tag-aaron-judge","9":"tag-alex-bregman","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-chicago","12":"tag-chicago-white-sox","13":"tag-chicagowhitesox","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-san-francisco-giants","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-white-sox","18":"tag-whitesox","19":"tag-world-baseball-classic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116169022330707731","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}