Francisco Lindor And Gleyber Torres Illustrate Significance Of World Baseball Classic

The World Baseball Classic ended with a dramatic Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani confrontation Tuesday that seemed like a perfect ending regardless of the outcome.

It resulted in Ohtani striking out Trout to give Japan the title and capped a stretch of a few weeks that saw various debates about the value of playing such an event in the midst of spring training.

The debate intensified last week when Mets’ closer Edwin Diaz injured his knee in a celebration of Puerto Rico’s 5-2 win over Dominican Republic. Diaz wound up with a season-ending injury and a few days Jose Altuve broke his thumb and will be out two months.

The Yankee presence at the event was minimal as they opted not to let Luis Severino pitch for the Dominican Republic citing his recent injury and an early hamstring injury prevented Nestor Cortes from suiting up for the United States.

Without two prominent pitchers taking part, the Yankee contingent included Gleyber Torres playing for Venezuela, Kyle Higashioka appearing for the United States and Jonathan Loaisiga suiting up for Nicaragua.

Torres wound up with one hit in 10 at-bats while playing for a country often in the news when discussing its various social problems. Despite the myriad of issues in his native country, Torres’ perspective is something to consider when engaging in a debate about the event which will return in three years and likely is here to stay.

“The situation we have in the country, it’s hard,” Torres told reporters at the Yankee spring training complex in Tampa. “But with those games we feel — and we saw — many really good comments that we (brought) the people in Venezuela together. I think that is the best experience we had. I think after the game we lost, for sure it’s sad, but we’re talking about how we impacted our country. Many troubles, but at those games the country was together with us, and I think that is the beautiful thing about baseball.”

For many, what Torres was discussing was similar to the kind of excitement seen with the 1992 Dream Team highlighted by Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan dominating on their way to a Gold Medal at the Barcelona games.

“I don’t know how the World Series is in New York,” Torres told reporters. “I think it’s awesome, too. But the WBC is amazing. It’s another level. Many Latin players. Many Latin people. The crowd, the fans, the energy when you play in those situations is just unreal.”

Playing on a team with fellow Venezuelan players created a unique situation of being teammates with Altuve. Altuve will always be booed in New York for his suspected role in the 2017 Astros’ cheating scandal but players do not operate on that wavelength, meaning they are cordial and friendly when encountering each other in batting practice or in Torres’ case at second base when either one is standing on the base.

“When you’ve got that opportunity to play for your country and you know most of the other players from your country, it’s amazing,” Torres told reporters. “The relationships that you make there is another level because during the season, you maybe see the player, you say, ‘Hi.’ But at those moments together, it’s amazing.”

Diaz’s injury certainly put a damper on the sky-high expectations of the Mets, who are looking to build off their 101-win season and avoid playing in the wild-card round where their encounter with the San Diego Padres highlighted more of the random nature of postseason in the wild-card era.

The serious injuries to Altuve and Diaz are random and fluky things that could happen in games. In Diaz’s case a knee injury could occur taking fielding practice on the mound, throwing one of his fastballs or shagging flyballs like in 2012 when Mariano Rivera was lost for the season in Kansas City.

Still before engaging in debate of the worthiness of the event, the opinions of those participating are certainly worth considering.

“We all care for each other and no one wants to get hurt,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor told reporters last week. “We all love our countries and want to represent our countries. We have an opportunity to represent our countries and learn from our peers. It’s amazing.”

And those comments are coming days after he witnessed Diaz being helped off the field, resulting in a heartbreaking moment.

What Lindor witnessed did not diminish his enthusiasm for the event nor did it diminish his excitement about possibly helping the Mets to a World Series title or two that has eluded them since Oct. 27, 1986.

“I’m not going to answer that question,” Lindor told reporters when asked if he would prefer to win a WBC or a World Series. “It’s just not fair. It’s not a fair question because I want to win two, three, four World Series and two, three, four WBCs. I’ve lost both and it’s not a good feeling.”

Lindor’s point is that it is acceptable to like both things and aspire to win both. And now that the event is over, those who participate can reflect on their excitement while pivoting to helping their teams win a World Series starting next Thursday when the regular season gets underway.