It’s so bad that I thought it was fake. Perhaps AI. Doctored audio/video. Surely not what it was purporting to be.

Except it was completely real.

As the USA team lost to Italy in the World Baseball Classic last night, this clip from Team USA manager Mark DeRosa’s appearance on MLB Network earlier in the day started to surface.

The issue, of course, is that Team USA didn’t have its ticket punched. Not in the least bit. Hours later, DeRosa put out what looked like a “B” lineup—Bryce Harper out, Paul Goldschmidt in—and slept walked through some very dubious pitching decisions. At one point, Clayton Kershaw (who is really only on the team as a nice gesture to him) was warming up in the bullpen.

If DeRosa was trying to win, we could call him incompetent.

But what we found out seems worse: He didn’t understand the rules or format of the tournament. At some point, perhaps someone from the team got in his ear. Team USA rallied to make the game close, and DeRosa used Mason Miller, not Clayton Kershaw, at the end.

The team goes into today’s action with a fighting chance, depending on tiebreakers.

Imagine if they had just played to win, or if the manager understood the assignment.

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