Imagine that, if only you had the mind of a creative genius to do so. This was baseball as directed by Fellini. Dreamlike absurdity played out in spikes.
Italy, a country which had no professional baseball until 1948, which had a 9–13 record in World Baseball Classic play, put the United States on the brink of elimination with an 8–6 win Tuesday in Houston that wasn’t as close as the final indicated.
For Italy, it was La Dolce Vita. Make your espresso a double this morning and steam every last wrinkle out of that Armani jacket, for the Italians pulled off their greatest win in international competition and one of the two greatest upsets in the six iterations of the WBC, matching the Netherlands’ shocker over the Dominican Republic in 2009.
For Team USA, it was a screening of Spirits of the Dead. The team looked hangover-flat after a tense, emotional win over Mexico. They were essentially done by the sixth inning, when they trailed 8–0. With Team USA no longer trotting out Cy Young Award winners, pitchers Nolan McLean, Ryan Yarbrough and Brad Keller could not hold down the left-handed-heavy back half of the Italian lineup. Those three pitchers walked four batters and allowed three homers. Keller threw away a potential inning-ending double play and sent a run home by spiking a pitch in the dirt.
Oh man 😩
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) March 11, 2026
A throwing error from USA leads to another Italy run!
📺: FS1 pic.twitter.com/Akc5Gxmbqj
Team USA could be knocked from the tournament Wednesday—an embarrassment given the talent of its roster—and it is out of their hands.
Mexico plays Italy to finish pool play. If Mexico wins by scoring four runs or fewer, the USA’s Dream Team is out in an unimaginable nightmare. All three teams will have completed pool play 3–1, but in that case USA, having allowed 11 runs to Mexico and Italy, would lose the tiebreaker.
How could such a thing happen? The starting lineup for Team USA includes seven All-Stars, four of whom have won an MVP or been runner-up. So loaded was the USA that Cal Raleigh, Bryce Harper and Alex Bregman began Tuesday’s game on the bench—$575 million worth of three backups.
Seven Italian pitchers threw 161 pitches—all but three of them below the major league four-seam fastball average of 95.7 mph.
Start with Michael Lorenzen. The Rockies righthander gave Italy 4 2/3 brilliant innings, making the baseball dart and dive like a paper airplane. Team USA likes to bully teams with walks and home runs, but when Italy defused those weapons, the Americans had no other way to win a ballgame.
The last of manager Francisco Cervelli’s pitchers was Greg Weissert, a Red Sox righthander with five career saves. He was once an 18th round pick out of Fordham by the Yankees and in 2022 and ’23 became teammates with Aaron Judge. It was Judge who faced Weissert in the ninth as the USA’s last hope. Judge had faced Weissert five times and won four of those at-bats with a single, a double and two walks. At 1-and-2, Weissert threw a changeup that dove toward Judge’s ankles. Judge swung over it, the eighth strikeout of the night for Team USA.
Italy gave the U.S. one walk the entire night. It challenged the Americans and won.
Today the Americans become huge fans of the team that just ran them off the field. If Italy beats Mexico, the U.S. advances as the pool runner-up. Even if Mexico wins, if Italy can produce runs the way it did against Team USA, that is another path for the Americans to backdoor into the knockout round.
All the U.S. can do now is sit, wait and root for the Azzurri. It will take more than a strong shot of espresso for Team USA to avoid a catastrophic exit. It will take what the Italians call “in bocca al lupo.” It is a saying that means “good luck” that translates literally to “into the wolf’s mouth.” The phrase began in Italian theatre and opera as something of an equivalent to “break a leg,” a wry way to acknowledge meeting the size of a huge task. That Team USA should be in such a precarious, nervous position is more than shocking. It is absurd.
More MLB on Sports Illustrated
- What's at Stake Entering Final Day of Pool Play at the World Baseball Classic
- There’s Another Wild Layer to the Mark DeRosa Interview Fiasco
- Here's What Team USA Needs in Italy vs. Mexico Game to Reach WBC Quarterfinals
- Team USA Manager Mark DeRosa Mistakenly Thought They Had Clinched Quarterfinal Spot
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Team USA’s Baseball Dream Team Is on the Brink of a Nightmarish Exit.
