Good morning Birdland,<\/p>\n
The baseball world is looking at Team USA manager Mark DeRosa with a raised eyebrow right now. His club lost to Italy on Tuesday night, 8-6, in their final game of pool play. Italy now leads Pool B with a 3-0 record, USA is second at 3-1, and Mexico is in third at 2-1. Italy and Mexico will play each other tonight at 7 p.m. ET with a berth in the knockout rounds on the line. Team USA needs some help if they are going to advance.<\/p>\n
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The top two teams advance from each pool. If Italy beats Mexico, then Italy would advance as the winners of the pool, and USA would advance as the runner up, regardless of the score. If Mexico wins, it all comes down to the tiebreaker, which is a calculation of number of runs allowed divided by number of outs recorded. You can read the exact tiebreaker rules on the WBC website<\/a>. But in short, USA is going to be rooting for an Italy win outright OR a relatively high-scoring game in which Mexico plates at least five runs.<\/p>\n DeRosa is under the microscope because earlier in the day he seemed to be treating the game against Italy as an opportunity to rest some players<\/a>.<\/p>\n Appearing on MLB Network, DeRosa said \u201cIt\u2019s weird. We want to win this game even though our ticket\u2019s punched to the quarterfinals.\u201d<\/p>\n Obviously, that was not true. What\u2019s worse, it doesn\u2019t sound like DeRosa was alone in his interpretation because he went on to say that \u201cthere\u2019s some guys dragging today\u201d due to the team\u2019s prolonged celebration after beating Mexico on Monday. Clearly, the entire team thought that beating Mexico clinched them a spot in the next round, and they did not take Italy seriously.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n It makes the entire team look incompetent, and it\u2019s a stain on the World Baseball Classic as a whole. It will be made even worse if Mexico pulls off an entirely possible win over Italy while scoring four or fewer runs.<\/p>\n On the Orioles front, they lost 7-6 to the Astros. but Coby Mayo had himself a day! The third baseman went 4-for-4 with a home run and five RBI. He is going to be the team\u2019s Opening Day third baseman, and it is well deserved. The pitching side of things was not as enjoyable, but none of the pitchers used are expected to part of the big league picture to begin 2026, so let\u2019s not fret.<\/p>\n The O\u2019s will host the Pirates today. First pitch is at 1 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n Links<\/p>\n Chris Davis among 2026 inductees into Orioles Hall of Fame | The Baltimore Banner<\/a> Advertisement<\/p>\n How this O\u2019s prospect went from pro infielder to collegian to lights-out pitcher | Orioles.com<\/a>
Chris Davis will be joined by pitcher Storm Davis and former front office executive and scout Jim Russo as inductees to the Orioles Hall of Fame this summer. Man, I am getting old!<\/p>\n
Anthony Nunez is a name to watch this year. The Orioles acquired him at the deadline last year, and he is expected to be a long-term fixture in their bullpen once he is deemed ready. That could honestly happen at at point this summer.<\/p>\n