HOUSTON — The cases of wine hadn’t arrived yet Wednesday night, but Vinnie Pasquantino, Aaron Nola and their Team Italy teammates certainly expect their shipment soon from Team USA, with perhaps a few boxes of pizza from Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper, Bobby Witt Jr. and the boys.
Pasquantino set a World Baseball Classic record by hitting three homers and Nola suffocated Mexico’s lineup, the duo leading Italy to a 9-1 win over Mexico, securing a quarterfinal berth for Italy while permitting the USA to stay alive and slide into the quarterfinals as the No. 2 seed.
The USA will play Canada, the top seed from Pool A, on Friday night, while Italy, the top seed from Pool B, will host Puerto Rico on Saturday night with both games at Daikin Park in Houston. The winners of the two games will advance to the semifinals in Miami.
While Italy’s attack silenced the heavily pro-Mexico crowd of 39,894 at Daikin Park, the loudest cheers erupted from Team USA’s hotel.
The Americans knew that an Italy victory would automatically assure a quarterfinal berth since they were 3-1 in pool play, with their lone loss coming to Italy (4-0). Yet, the suspense ended early. They basically knew they were in by the fifth inning, once Italy scored their fifth run, giving them a tiebreaker advantage in runs allowed, even if Italy lost.
Just like that, it allowed Team USA manager Mark DeRosa to exhale after he was ridiculed from coast-to-coast, mistakenly believing that the USA had clinched a quarterfinal berth Monday after beating Mexico, 5-3. He erroneously said on MLB Network that the Americans had punched their ticket to the quarterfinals Tuesday night before their game against Italy. He realized his mistake when he arrived at the ballpark, but insisted it didn’t affect his lineup or in-game strategy.
“I just misspoke,’’ DeRosa said repeatedly after the loss to Italy.
No matter, he was still torched, and certainly will be the center of attention Thursday during the workouts for the four quarterfinal teams.
While these quarterfinals in Houston have featured plenty of drama off the field, from two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal’s decision to return to the Detroit Tigers to USA catcher Cal Raleigh’s refusal to shake Mexico outfielder Randy Arozarena’s hand at home plate, lost in the shuffle has been Italy’s brilliant performance.
No one gave the Italians a chance in the pool, which they had never won. It was always USA and Mexico. When USA beat Mexico, the Americans chilled late in the clubhouse for a few hours, thinking Italy would be a push-over the next day, only to lose 8-6. When Mexico played Italy on Wednesday, the biggest question wasn’t whether the Mexicans would win, but would they hold the scoring down to prevent the USA from getting into the quarterfinals in a three-way tie.
Instead, Italy engineered the two greatest victories in Italian baseball history with back-to-back upsets against the two powers.
“This means the world for Italian baseball,’’ said Marco Mazzieri, Italian federation president.
‘The phones are just blowing up,’ he added.
They are now the talk of Italy, with highlights showing on national TV, the prime minister singing their praises, and baseball now on the country’s landscape as an authentic sport.
“Pretty awesome,’’ said Italy second baseman Jon Berti, who’s hit .417 this tournament, and homered Wednesday. “We’re here to win, and we’re here working our butts off to put Italian baseball on the map. Pretty cool to see the prime minister gave us a little bit of a shout-out this morning. …
“I wish my grandfather was still around. He would be loving this. That’s one of the big reasons I wanted to play.’’
It was only fitting that Italy’s biggest hero was Pasquantino, their captain and ringleader of everything from espresso shots to jello shot to wine tastings. Pasquantino, Witt’s teammate with the Kanas City Royals, had been AWOL in Italy’s first three games. He had played fabulous defense, but didn’t have a lone hit, going 0-for-12.
That all changed with one historic evening with a solo homer in the second inning, the sixth inning and the eighth inning.
Yes, it was not only the first three-homer game in WBC history, but perhaps the first three-espresso night in a baseball dugout, too.
“It’s unbelievable how close this group has gotten in such a quick timeframe,’’ Berti said. “We’re all trying to enjoy it as best as we can because we know it won’t last much longer, no matter what. It’s a short tournament, unfortunately. We wish we could play all together for a long time.
“But Vinnie gets a huge credit for that. He set the tone early for us. He’s an awesome leader, very fun to be around and kind of drew everybody in and together.’’
Even when Pasquantino was struggling offensively, his teammates swore you couldn’t tell whether he went 4-for-4 or 0-for-4, showing all of the qualities you’d ever want in a clubhouse leader.
“I would say so,’’ Berti said. “It’s very infectious. We have a lot of younger guys on the team as well with a lot of talent, and it’s kind of allowed them to kind of open up and be themselves a little bit, which might be a little different than some big-league clubhouses, where you need to earn a lot of respect.
“But in this short of a period, it’s good to get everyone on board right away. And he’s done a great job of that, and the young guys have responded, which has been awesome to see.’’
Then, there was Nola, the veteran starter on the Phillies’ staff, and teammates with Schwarber and Harper. He knew if Italy simply won, there would be no need for any tiebreakers or calculators. So he went out and absolutely shoved in his WBC debut, giving up just four hits in five shutout innings with five strikeouts. When he left the game, Italy had a 5-0 lead and cruised the rest of the way.
Team Italy’s starting rotation was relentless in its four games in pool play. It produced a 1.00 ERA, yielding 10 hits and two runs in 18 innings with 20 strikeouts, and a .175 batting average.
Italy’s renaissance has reached such a crescendo that the entire day was dedicated to Italian baseball, with news even spreading in the parliament.
“That means we are making noise,’’ Italy manager Francisco Cervelli said, “and noise in a positive way. If we win this tournament, it will help the national (soccer) team. And I say the national team is a religion. But the religion, probably before the 1900s, was not a religion.
“So probably this is the start of a new religion, baseball in Italy. I don’t know how we can do it, but I think we make it happen. It’s a good start. And I’m glad in Italy a lot of people are talking about baseball.’’
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