Midway through the fourth-ever World Baseball Classic, we’ve already seen a resurgent 41-year-old reliever, some memorable celebrations and at least one disgruntled player.
There’s still lots of baseball left, but in the meantime here are some early takeaways from the tournament…
ONE MORE CHANCE
The American team is deep—so deep that Giancarlo Stanton hits eighth at times. For many other countries depth is an issue, though, and as a result the WBC puts former stars in the spotlight.
Canadians Pete Orr, Justin Morneau and Eric Gagne each have considerable MLB experience, but none is currently under contract to play for a big-league team and only Morneau played at the MLB level last year. Orr, now a pro scout for the Brewers, has no aspirations of returning to the field, but both Morneau and Gagne hope to sign with MLB organizations.
Gagne had interest from five teams before he hit 95 mph out of the bullpen in Miami. Now that he’s shown he can still compete at the highest level, even more teams figure to pursue the 2003 NL Cy Young winner, who’s now 41 years old.
TIME TO CELEBRATE
Nelson Cruz hits home runs for a living, so circling the bases is nothing new for the Seattle Mariners’ 36-year-old right fielder. But even after going deep 284 times at the MLB level, has he ever celebrated a home run as excitedly as he did Sunday, when he took Andrew Miller deep to give the Dominican Republic the lead?
The stakes are high, the crowds are intense and so the players are fired up—especially Javy Baez, who somehow figured out a way to celebrate before he tagged out an approaching base-runner.
There are limits, though. While there’s nothing wrong with showing excitement, Rougned Odor‘s bat flip for a single seemed a little excessive.
CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE
The Royals experienced some scary moments when their starting catcher, Salvador Perez, needed help leaving the field after a home-plate collision with their backup catcher, Drew Butera. Fortunately for Kansas City, Perez isn’t facing anything more than knee inflammation and expects to be ready for opening day. Still, it’s moments like that that make many teams anxious about the tournament.
But while teams typically keep their grumbling to a minimum, Adrian Gonzalez returned to Los Angeles Dodgers camp with some openly critical words about the tournament.
BAUTISTA IMPRESSES
When Jose Bautista downplayed his early-spring success, his reasons were understandable. Sure, he was off to a hot start (nine hits, including two home runs, in 16 at-bats), but the quality of competition wasn’t that strong, either.
Well, Bautista has continued hitting the ball hard in the WBC and this time he’s facing some high-calibre arms. For a Blue Jays team counting on a big year from Bautista, that’s good news.
Speaking of arms, the 36-year-old threw out an opponent at home plate in another encouraging development for the Blue Jays.
OSUNA STRUGGLES
Blue Jays closer Roberto Osuna struggled in his first WBC outing, allowing five runs to score. By the sounds of it, the team’s decision makers aren’t putting much stock into the outing.
“None. Zero. Osuna’s our guy,” Gibbons said. “You never know what happens in those things. We’re not worried about that.”
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