New Headline: "Red Sox Shrug Off Venezuelan Coach Amid 5-0 World Series Slump!
MIAMI — Venezuela manager Omar López went beyond the limit to help his nation win its first World Baseball Classic. Major league clubs routinely place restrictions on how national team managers can use pitchers at the WBC. One key for López and Venezuela in the championship game was that he talked some MLB team executives into dropping their initial limitations.
U. S. manager Mark DeRosa accepted such restraints.
That allowed López to pitch Chicago Cubs closer Daniel Palencia for the second straight night and third time in four days. Palencia retired three straight batters to seal a 3-2 win. “I woke this morning, three text messages from different organizations trying not to pitch guys back to back,” López said before the game.
“One of my strengths is talk, and I send my text back fighting for my guys and then set a phone call with everybody. When you talk and you get an agreement, you negotiate it, everything is going to go well. ” López relaxed a bit after the back and forth.
“I have my guys tonight to go back to back if I need to, and that’s the most important thing,” he said. DeRosa didn’t use Mason Miller, perhaps baseball’s best reliever, because he promised the San Diego Padres he would pitch the 27-year-old righty only in a save situation. Miller had Monday off after throwing 22 pitches in the ninth inning of Sunday’s 2-1 win over the Dominican Republic, when his fastball averaged 101 mph.