Sportswriter criticizes managerial prowess during the World Baseball Classic.

I'll start this blog entry with the following Jeff Passan punchline:

"One of Torre's greatest strengths is explaining the rationale behind certain decisions."

Oh, boy.

This is going to be good:

"Two shadows cast themselves over Team USA on Sunday afternoon. The first peeked through the open roof at Chase Field and bathed home plate in darkness, making the already-trying task of picking up a 95-mph pitch from 60 feet away that much more vexing."

That's vexing for the Team USA batters, but good for the Team USA pitchers.


"Even worse was the other, impossible to see but easy to sense: The United States, where baseball was invented, was about to bomb out of the World Baseball Classic, and the lasting pall would be far greater than anything the clouds and sun ever could muster."

Yeah, the lasting pall would have been far greater than anything the clouds and sun could ever muster.

Figuratively.


"Despite Joe Torre managing as though the analytical breakthroughs of the last 20 years never happened – bunting three times with a lineup of All-Stars, shrugging off matchup-relief situations, walking a career-long scrub to load the bases with a new reliever coming in and keeping the player who led the major leagues in slugging percentage last year on the bench all game despite struggling for runs over the first seven innings – Team USA turned into Team USA over the final two innings, dropping seven runs and joining Italy, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico in Miami."

That is the longest sentence an American sportswriter has ever dedicated to the World Baseball Classic.


"By doing their duty, the players rescued Torre from a rightful filleting after turning a lineup of mashers into practitioners of small-ball tiddlywinks. With runners on first and second and no outs in the second inning, he bunted Jones – 2012 numbers: .287/.334/.505 – and didn't score. Same scenario in the fourth and once again, a bunt with Ben Zobrist – 2012 numbers: .270/.377/.471 – went for a hit only because Canada's third baseman, Taylor Green, isn't an altogether competent third baseman. And the worst was in the eighth, when, down a run, Torre called for Zobrist to bunt one more time – and he popped out to the catcher.

Jones, the next hitter, also saved Torre from having to explain how he can say this – 'We really don't have a soft spot in that lineup' – and then manage like he has a lineup of nine David Ecksteins." 

Torre's reputation would have been fine.  Because nobody cares about the WBC, that's why.