PHOENIX – Great Britain manager Drew Spencer engaged in a little gamesmanship after his team’s scrappy 6-2 loss to the powerhouse United States, declining to reveal his starting pitcher for Sunday’s World Baseball Classic clash against Canada.
“Sorry, it's a tournament,” he said. “We'll play with every advantage and hold onto the mystery.”
The Brits used five pitchers, led by starter Vance Worley who allowed two unearned runs in 2.2 innings, against the Americans. Lefty McKenzie Mills, a starter who split last season between independent ball team Southern Maryland and Quintana Roo in Mexico, is a possibility to gain platoon advantage over the left-leaning Canadian lineup.
Right-handers Jake Esch, Ryan Long, who allowed Kyle Schwarber’s pivotal three-run homer in the fourth, Daniel Cooper and Michael Peterson followed Worley, keeping Britain’s options open for Sunday.
“We had a couple of plans and I joked around a little bit about Plan A, B and C,” said Spencer. “We stuck with plan A, and we were in the ball game right to the end.”
Britain had eight hits, including Trayce Thompson’s solo shot in the first, and a second-inning single by Toronto Blue Jays outfield prospect Jaden Rudd.
The 20-year-old was born in Britain where his father Jason, an F-15 fighter pilot, was stationed before moving to Florida. In 2021, the Blue Jays picked him in the seventh round out of A. Crawford Mosley High School in Lynn Haven, Fla., and last year, British coach Brad Marcelino recruited him for the Regensburg qualifying tournament, where Rudd hit a game-tying homer in the ninth before the extra inning rally that beat Spain and put them for the Classic.
“This was by far the most important baseball I've ever played,” Rudd said of facing the U.S. “It's the biggest crowd I've played in front of and the biggest stage. So it was a learning experience and it was the most fun three hours of my life.”
What did he learn?
“Learned how to handle some nerves,” he replied. “The game was at seven o'clock, there's a long build-up to it, so I learned how to handle that, learned how to handle the noise, the cameras, this, that and the other. I'm extremely blessed to be here and I'm trying to soak in every second of it.”
Rudd’s eventful night also included tracking down lasers by Mookie Betts in the first and Mike Trout in the third that appeared destined for the stands and hitting into a double play off Adam Wainright in the fourth after singling off the long-time St. Louis Cardinals star.
Spencer said Rudd also provided “one of my favorite moments in that whole game” in the seventh, when after being lifted for D'Shawn Knowles, “was the first guy up congratulating him” for hitting a triple. “That just shows who we are,” the manager added.
It’d also be instructive about Rudd, who spent last season on the Blue Jays’ complex league team.
“As soon as I come out of left field, I can't help the team in left field, I can help the team at the plate or on the bases or any other way. I can help the team win in the dugout,” he said. “There's something I can do to try to rile up the team to fire them up, just get them going, that's a win and that's the role that I play when I get taken out of the game.”
Two former Blue Jays in Britain’s lineup also got hits in the game – Chavez Young, the farmhand traded to the Pirates for Zach Thompson over the winter, and Darnell Sweeney, who made two appearances with the big-league team in 2018.
Former Blue Jays lefty Aaron Loup was added to the American team’s roster before the game after Brooks Raley suffered a minor hamstring strain, but he didn’t appear in the game.
U.S. manager Mark DeRosa played with Loup in Toronto in 2013 and “it was a pretty easy decision for me to reach out to him first and see where he was at. And he jumped at it.”
“I know Loupy, not easy to walk into this clubhouse, especially a couple of days late. I knew he could handle it,” DeRosa added. “That guy has ice-water in his veins. I knew he'd throw his bag down and assimilate perfect.”
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