CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2013 In his heart, he\u2019d go pitch.<\/p>\n
In his head \u2026<\/p>\n
Jes\u00fas Luzardo will not join Team Venezuela for the final days of the World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n
The left-hander has decided to remain in camp with the Phillies, the team with which he signed a five-year, $135-million contract extension last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just made a big commitment to me and my family and I\u2019m committed to them and getting ready for the season,\u201d Luzardo said after throwing a bullpen session Sunday. \u201cEspecially getting so close to opening day, it would have been a whirlwind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luzardo, 28, had been in contact with Team Venezuela for weeks and was strongly considering taking the ball for Tuesday night\u2019s championship game, if Venezuela got there. Team Venezuela will play Team Italy in the semifinals Monday night in Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m rooting for those guys,” Luzardo said. \u201cIt breaks my heart not being able to be there with them, but it got kind of complicated with my situation here, having just signed an extension, trying to build up how they want me to build up here. It\u2019s just unfortunate I\u2019m not going to be able to make it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have pitched Tuesday; I lined up for the same day. But at the same time, (the Phillies) want to make sure I get the innings and the ups and the pitches, which who knows if that would have or would not have happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team USA will play the Dominican Republic on Sunday night in the other semifinal game.<\/p>\n
Luzardo\u2019s parents, Monica and Jesus Sr., are natives of Venezuela. Jesus Jr., was born in Peru when his dad was working for Motorola in that country. Eventually, the family moved to South Florida.<\/p>\n
Jesus Jr., had committed to attend the University of Miami before being drafted by Washington in 2016 and signing a professional contract. At the time, he promised his dad that he\u2019d one day get his college degree. Even after signing his huge contract, he intends to keep that promise.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe not this year,\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cBut that\u2019s a promise I made to him, and I plan on keeping it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took some online classes (at the University of Florida and Florida International University) after I first signed, but it was tough finding time when you\u2019re riding buses for 12 hours in the minors. Whenever I do get a little more time on my hands, I plan on getting a degree, maybe in finance or business. I tried finance a little bit, but macroeconomics kicked my butt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be as educated as possible. Just because we\u2019re baseball players doesn\u2019t mean we can\u2019t get the degree. And I made that promise to my dad. I made that promise to him at 18, and I plan on keeping it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luzardo\u2019s dad works in the software industry. He also handles business matters for his son and works with his wife on their son\u2019s charitable\u00a0foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI always tell him it\u2019s time to retire, but he\u2019s a workaholic,\u201d Jesus Jr., said of his dad. \u201cHe works really hard. He sets a great example for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEARWATER, Fla. \u2013 In his heart, he\u2019d go pitch. In his head \u2026 Jes\u00fas Luzardo will not join…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2397],"tags":[5,4,144,25,4216,40,16702],"class_list":{"0":"post-625298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-philadelphia","11":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","12":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","13":"tag-phillies","14":"tag-phillies-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116234571212652385","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625298","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=625298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}