The weekend wasn’t a particularly fruitful time for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic (WBC).
Yes, they beat Great Britain easily to start of their title defense campaign with a victory, but Mexico was vastly superior in an 11-5 Sunday loss.
Los Angeles Angels left-hander Patrick Sandoval was the starter for Mexico, who is 1-1 after losing to Colombia on Saturday.
Sandoval was really solid on Sunday against the Americans, allowing just one run in three innings of work.
He struck out two, and one of them was an old friend.
Patrick Sandoval struck out Mike Trout swinging.
— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) March 13, 2023
Yes, that’s right: Sandoval got his star teammate to strike out swinging in his masterful performance.
Trout has 350 career home runs and a 1.002 OPS for his career, but at least for one at-bat, he fell victim to Sandoval’s above-average arsenal.
The left-hander had a terrific 2.91 ERA in 148.2 frames last season with the Angels.
He struck out 151 hitters, more than one per inning.
With their record at 1-1, the Americans know that they can’t afford to slip up against Colombia or Canada if they want to make it to the next round.
Both of those teams have some major league talent and are capable of shocking the reigning champs.
Mexico, on the other hand, has to play Canada and Great Britain.
The former will be a hotly contested affair that will probably decide one of the spots for the next round, but the latter should be a winnable game for the Mexicans.
Nobody knows what will happen in Pool C, despite the United States being favorites by virtue of their explosive offense.
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