The 2026 World Baseball Classic begins pool play on Wednesday. There are four pools with five teams each; the top two teams from each pool will move on to the quarterfinals in Miami and Houston, which begin on Friday, March 13, before the semifinals and finals in Miami.
Team USA manager Mark DeRosa announced that he’s set his rotation for pool play and it is as follows:
Webb is a two-time All-Star and one of the best workhorses in MLB. He finished fourth in NL Cy Young voting last season and has been the runner-up before. He’s a fine choice to start things off. Skubal is arguably the best pitcher in the world, having won the last two American League Cy Young awards. This is his only outing with USA, as he’ll return to the Tigers after this start. Skenes gets the toughest assignment here, as Mexico is a very capable squad and heads into the pool regarded as the second-best team of the group. Skenes, though, has the non-Skubal case for the best pitcher in the world.
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Matt Snyder
McLean only has eight MLB starts under his belt, but he was 5-1 with a 2.06 ERA last season for the Mets. He’s a bit under the weather right now and actually developed “vertigo-like symptoms,” (via SNY), but the hope is he’s fine for the assignment by next Tuesday against Italy.
There are limits of 65 pitches in pool play for the starters, though they can go over this threshold to finish their current batter. The limit goes up to 80 for the quarterfinals and 95 for the semifinals and finals.
Again, USA loses Skubal after pool play, if it does advance. Still, there would only be a max of three games after that round, so there remain Webb, Skenes and McLean. Given the 65-pitch limit, the starters might need to be piggy-backed and that’s where starters like Matthew Boyd, Clay Holmes and Michael Wacha can enter the equation before relievers like Gabe Speier, Garrett Whitlock and Garrett Cleavinger can be the bridge to the late-inning studs Griffin Jax, David Bednar and Mason Miller.
This is all to say that the pitching setup for USA looks pretty solid right now.
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