It was one of the saddest performances ever staged by a Canadian baseball team — at least, in the past decade.
Italy 6, Canada 2. Canada is eliminated in two games from the World baseball Classic.
Come on. How does that happen? Italy? That team would struggle against a decent Double A club.
Worse yet, how does Canada lose a game with that much importance attached to it at home? Somebody explain that.
Obviously, it happens because alleged “big time” players, who seem to be the favoured belled cows of Baseball Canada’s expert hired staff, laid an egg right when they needed to play like champions. As they often do.
Let’s take a look at these stats:
Shortstop Chris Barnwell, 0-for-4 against the U.S., 0-for-3 against Italy
Third baseman Mark Teahen, 1-for-4 against the U.S., 0-for-2 against Italy
Leftfielder Nick Weglarz, 0-for-2 against the U.S., 0-for-3 against Italy (he hit two balls in fair territory in two games)
Second baseman Peter Orr, 0-for-4 against the U.S., 0-for-3 against Italy (plus two strikeouts and a horrible play at second base).
Rightfielder Matt Stairs, 0-for-3 against the U.S., 0-for-3 against Italy
Weglarz, only 21 and a lifetime .270 hitter at the Single A level, was completely overmatched. Stairs looked done. Orr was just downright horrible in every possibly way.
How do those guys play while a nine-year major league veteran like Corey Koskie sits on the bench?
Koskie was the best hitter on the team leaving Dunedin. In two games, he went five-for-six with a walk and was hit. He scored four runs and drove in two. Everything he hit, he hit right on the nose.
And he didn’t even get to pinch hit in the WBC. That’s ridiculous.
Ernie Whitt promised Koskie “You’ll be the first bat off the bench,” and so he chose Team Canada ahead of the Chicago Cubs. Obviously a bad decision.
In fairness, it’s unlikely Whitt lied. It’s likely that when Koskie got to Toronto, Greg Hamilton took over. For years, Max Poulin has claimed that Hamilton only plays his buddies. I always questioned that, but now I’ve seen it for myself. Hamilton’s pal Stubby Clapp, who hasn’t done anything at the plate in three years, got to pinch hit while the best hitter in Dunedin didn’t get a sniff.
Nick Weglarz? Peter Orr? Matt Stairs? All of them awful.
In fact, this is how badly handled this team was managed: The Kansas City Royals wanted Mark Teahen to play second base. Whitt put Teahen at third and Orr at second. Why? How about Koskie at third and Teahen at second? Peter Orr — and Weglarz and Stairs — were nothing more than automatic outs. And defensive liabilities.
At lot of people wanted to blame Whitt’s Northern League pitching staff, but the fact remains, if you can’t score seven runs against a semi-pro staff like Italy’s, you should PLAY in the Northern League. It’s interesting that, historically, Hamilton has put down the Northern League. If it wasn’t for the N.L., he would not have had a pitching staff (Mike Johnson, Vince Perkins, Scott Richmond and Chris Begg are all Northern Leaguers or ex-Northern Leaguers). That’s because far too many big leaguers won’t play for Canada.
People in this country are saying that this team put the nation’s baseball program back 10 years. I believe it put the program back three decades.
And the only way to fix it is to fire Greg Hamilton right now.
And let Ernie Whitt carry the boxes on moving day.