Team USA manager Mark DeRosa didn’t know his team’s elimination scenario before Italy game in WBC originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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Mark DeRosa didn’t know that the United States could still fail to make the knockout round at the World Baseball Classic.
After Tuesday night’s stunning loss to Italy, he said that he simply “misspoke” earlier in the day, but it’s hard to square that with what DeRosa actually said.
Appearing on MLB Network on Tuesday before the U.S. took on Italy, DeRosa said:
“It’s weird. We want to win this game, even though our ticket’s punched to the quarterfinals.”
That sounds more like he wasn’t aware of all the actual scenarios in play.
Given that the U.S. sat Bryce Harper for Paul Goldschmidt and at one point had the retired Clayton Kershaw warming up to come in the game to pitch, it certainly seemed like Team USA was simply playing a game it thought it didn’t need to win.
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Turns out, the U.S. did need to win, and there’s a disaster scenario in play.
Team USA is now done with pool play and will watch Italy play Mexico on Wednesday night with fingers crossed.
If Mexico wins while scoring four runs or less, Mexico and Italy advance and the U.S. gets knocked out in pool play.
Tiebreaker scenario if Mexico beats Italy tomorrow:
🇲🇽🇺🇸 advance:
Mexico scores 5+ runs.🇲🇽🇮🇹 advance:
Mexico scores 4 runs of less.🇺🇸🇮🇹 advance:
Italy win vs Mexico #worldbaseballclassic— Dimitri Kourtis (@D_Kourtis27) March 11, 2026
The simplest thing now is for the U.S. to root for Italy. Otherwise, there’s a path toward the biggest WBC shocker ever.
To be fair, it’s slightly unlucky and unlikely that three teams would tie atop a pool with 3-1 records, and given the caliber of the U.S., Italy and Mexico, it’d be tough for any of them to have to be eliminated at this stage in that scenario.
But that’s where these teams find themselves, and while Team USA controlled its destiny, it wasn’t safe. Now all it can do is hope.
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