To prepare for its quarterfinal game Friday, Team USA brought in guest speaker Robert J. O’Neill, a former SEAL Team Six member who was part of the unit that killed Osama bin Laden.
Among the Team Dominican Republic celebratory props is a dumbbell that is wrapped with plantains, which is often lifted following home runs that turn ballparks into nightclubs.
One team is serious. One team is, well, silly. One team is singularly focused on winning. One team wants to win but is determined to have fun along the way.
It will be a clash not just of stars but of cultures when the Americans and Dominicans face off Sunday night in Florida for a World Baseball Classic semifinal.
“I know the fans definitely love [the Dominican flair], but I try not to look at what other teams are doing, what other people are doing,” Aaron Judge, captain of Team USA and the Yankees and a superstar who plays with more professionalism than joy, told reporters Friday night. “I’ll focus on what we got here. We got a special group of guys that love to play this game. They’re excited to be in this room. I know how they’re all honored to be in this room. They’re not taking it for granted.
“So it’s exciting seeing what the D.R. is doing, and it’s been fun watching those games and seeing what’s going on. I think everybody in [the clubhouse] is excited to get there and be a part of it.”
“There” is Miami, which is located in the United States but merely technically. South Florida might not pay much attention to the Marlins or MLB, but it does love baseball and the Dominican Republic. A country on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola with a population the size of Ohio and the physical size of West Virginia routinely produces many of the best baseball players in the world.
The Americans, who played their group-stage and quarterfinal games with the fans in their corner in Houston, will be entering enemy territory.
“I expect to be the away team, for sure, but that’s what we’re looking forward to,” Pete Crow-Armstrong told Fox Sports after knocking off Canada. “We want the electricity, the energy in the crowd. That’s why we’re throwing Mr. Skenes out there.”
Paul Skenes might be the greatest pitcher in the world, a 6-foot-6 specimen with a triple-digit fastball and calling-card splinker — the velocity of a sinker with the drop of a splitter — that helped him become the NL Cy Young Award winner last season. Like Judge and like much of Team USA, he performs more as a surgeon than celebrity. Formerly a two-way star at the Air Force Academy, Skenes operates with discipline and a calmness.
The hitters he will face do not.
Against Venezuela, Juan Soto admired a home run that just kept traveling, turned to his dugout and beat his chest before beginning his trot, which finished at home plate, where his team greeted him. Fernando Tatis Jr. did not quite finish his follow-through on his swing, launching his bat down the third-base line immediately after launching the pitch. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. remained at home plate until the ball cleared the left-field wall, then spiked his bat to the dirt and began gesturing to the dugout long before he broke out into a jog. Ketel Marte knew his shot would land in the seats upon impact, twirling his bat and pumping up his teammates rather than running or watching the trajectory.
Consider an American controversy during the WBC: Cal Raleigh declining to shake hands with Mariners teammate Randy Arozarena apparently because the catcher did not want to break focus or pal around with the competition.
The styles are poles apart. The talent level is similar.
Each roster features nine — nine! — players who received MVP votes last season. Team USA has the AL MVP (Judge) and runner-up (Raleigh). Team D.R. has No. 3 and No. 4 (Soto and Geraldo Perdomo) in the NL. (Perdomo, by the way, batted ninth in the quarterfinal game.)
The American lineup has yet to unleash its power and potential, but maybe a familiar opponent in Luis Severino, the Dominican starter, will help the group click.
The Dominican lineup has played five games and scored 51 runs, a total that would be higher if not for the tournament’s mercy rules.
The matchup — the United States against Plátano Power — will be fascinating.
