Mark DeRosa’s MLB Network interview in which he appeared to not know the World Baseball Classic tiebreak rules is back online after temporarily being pulled.
Following the Team USA manager’s comments on on “Hot Stove” and the U.S.’ loss to Italy Tuesday, MLB removed the video of DeRosa’s appearance from its site to avoid fans getting inaccurate information about the quarterfinals, a source at MLB told The Post.
The video is now back online.
DeRosa, in response to a question from Matt Vasgersian alluding to the fact that his team had already clinched a quarterfinals spot, seemingly confirmed the idea.
He added he’d try to rest certain players versus Italy due to the lower stakes.
“I’m gonna look at it, I’m gonna get some guys off their feet, no question about it,” DeRosa said. “I’d like to get (Paul Goldschmidt) a start, he has been awesome, just a leader of men behind the scenes with Aaron Judge. I’d like to get him in there, I’d like to get Gunnar (Henderson) in there again.
“It’s weird, we want to win this game even though our ticket’s punched to the quarterfinals,” he added. “The way the schedule lines up, this is an important game for us.”
DeRosa stuck to his word, sitting players like Bryce Harper, Cal Raleigh, Byron Buxton and Brice Turang, all of whom were in its Game 1 lineup versus Brazil.
As a result, the U.S. lost 8-6 to Italy, falling behind 8-0 and never recovering.
Despite a 3-0 start to pool play, the defeat puts the U.S.’ chances of moving on in jeopardy.
The Americans are forced to rely on either Italy beating Mexico on Wednesday or Mexico defeating Italy while scoring at least five runs due to wonky tiebreaker rules.
Following Tuesday’s loss, DeRosa was asked by reporters about his earlier comments. He cited that he simply “misspoke.”
“I was on ‘Hot Stove’ with a couple of buddies today and completely misread the calculations,” DeRosa said. “We knew Mexico was going to play Italy and running all the numbers with if we lost tonight with the runs allowed and runs scored and outs. So, I just misspoke.”
If the U.S. does squeak through to the quarterfinals, its loss to Italy means it can only be the runner-up in Pool B. That means it would play the winner of Pool A in the quarterfinals — one of Puerto Rico, Canada or Cuba.
No matter what happens, DeRosa’s oversight put the U.S. in a rough spot.
