LOS ANGELES—Baseball’s biggest international stage hasn’t been kind to the United States, but they washed away years of frustration Wednesday by winning their first World Baseball Classic title.
Marcus Stroman pitched a no-hitter through six innings and Ian Kinsler belted a home run as the United States carved up Puerto Rico 8-0 at Dodger Stadium.
“We were talking before the game that there is no way we lose this,” said left fielder Christian Yelich. “We just couldn’t see a scenario where we lost this tournament.”
“We just knew if we went out and did what we had to do, we were going to come out on top.”
Kinsler started the scoring for the Americans with a 402-foot two-run home run in the third.
The US team tacked on two more runs in the third, two in the fifth, three in the seventh and one in the eighth. Those three runs in the seventh all came with two outs.
Stroman had his no-hit bid ended when Puerto Rico’s Angel Pagan opened the bottom of the seventh with a double.
The US pitcher has Puerto Rican roots on his mother’s side of the family and at one time he said he would like to play for Puerto Rico instead of the US.
But after winning the title – and picking up the MVP award — the 25-year-old Toronto Blue Jay pledged his allegiance to Team USA on Wednesday.
“I’ll be back in four years to defend the title,” he said.
One American who won’t return is manager Jim Leyland. The former Pittsburgh Pirates and Detroit Tigers manager had come out of retirement to guide the American team.
“I have been retired for three years and I am going to stay retired. That I can promise you,” Leyland told reporters.
“I am not wearing a baseball uniform anymore. I’ll be 73 years old. That’s enough. Let somebody else do it.”
While this may not be the World Series, Leyland likes the idea of going out on top.
He praised the way his players have come together as a unit in their brief time playing for Team USA.
“I had some players tell me this is the greatest experience of their life. Joe Torre did a great job of putting them together and made themselves a team in a short period of time.”
Leyland said he admired Stroman’s performance.
“Stroman was unbelievable. His ball was sinking so good. There were so many ground ball outs,” he said.
The US is considered baseball’s birthplace but the Americans had never won the WBC.
The US is without its best pitcher, Clayton Kershaw, as well as MLB MVPs center fielder Mike Trout and third baseman Kris Bryant, who all decided to skip the event.
Some owners also did not want their players on the roster because of the risk of injuries.
Leyland said he doesn’t hold a grudge against those players who turned them down.
“We had players who wanted to be here. Everybody was respectful and they respectfully declined and we moved forward with the guys we were searching for,” he said.