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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Team USA undone by Nelson Figueroa’s brilliance at WBC

Associated Press

Ryan Braun and Ryan Vogelsong are out, Team USA is ruined.

Either that, or a much simpler reason a club loaded with big league All-Stars got jettisoned in the World Baseball Classic: For one night, a pitcher who is the very definition of a journeyman became the best pitcher in the universe.

“As an American, I wanted them to win. It’s surprising,” Cincinnati outfielder Jay Bruce said. “They had a great team out there, but that’s baseball.”

A day after Joe Mauer, Brandon Phillips and this latest U.S. team again failed to reach the championship game, there was plenty of talk around the sport about what Friday night’s 4-3 loss to Puerto Rico meant.

Some wondered whether the United States should put together an even more packed roster next time. Others say the U.S. has lost its hold on the game it invented. Many suggest the format of the tournament needs to be tweaked.

“It was a bit of an upset,” said Milwaukee infielder Taylor Green, who played for Canada in the WBC. “Both teams were good. But with one game in baseball, you just never know.”

Whatever, there was only one thing for sure – Nelson Figueroa, who was born in Brooklyn and has pitched all over the globe, threw a fastball that never topped 88 mph and still put his team into the semifinals while eliminating manager Joe Torre’s side.

Defeated by the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico in Miami, the U.S. team watched those two clubs advance to the finals.

For Team USA, it was a semi-familiar result – the club didn’t reach the semifinals for the initial WBC in 2006, then lost to Japan in the 2009 semis.

Vogelsong, the winning pitcher in Game 3 of the World Series last October, dismissed talk that his U.S. teammates treat these matchups merely as an extension of spring training.

“These games are intense. They mean a lot. There’s a lot of pride at stake. Being in the postseason and being here is very similar. It’s quite honestly the same. For people to think this is just an exhibition, that’s just false.”

It piques some fans that many top names were not on the roster. Justin Verlander, David Price and Jered Weaver were among the best pitchers absent, while Mike Trout, Buster Posey and Josh Hamilton weren’t in the lineup.

That’s led many fans to say the timing of the tourney should be changed to somehow make it convenient for every star to take part.

But, the U.S. lineup against Figueroa featured three former MVPs – Mauer, Braun and Jimmy Rollins. The lone player in the starting nine who wasn’t an All-Star was Kansas City first baseman Eric Hosmer.

Hosmer was a late replacement for Yankees star Mark Teixeira, who injured his wrist swinging a weighted bat. Mets third baseman David Wright also pulled out with a strain in his rib cage.

Despite worries about injuries in the WBC, what happened to Teixeira and Wright could’ve happened as easily in camp with their New York teams.

Instead, the final defeat had more to do with Figueroa.

His last big league season was 2011, when he had an 8.69 ERA in a brief stint with Houston. He played last season in the minors with the Boston and Yankees systems.Yet for one night at Marlins Park, he was virtually untouchable, pitching two-hit ball for six scoreless innings. Until this win, his best game had been a four-hit shutout for the Mets on the final day of the 2009 season.

Clearing the bases

Justin Turner, the leading candidate to replace injured David Wright at third base for the Mets, left New York’s game on Saturday after spraining his right ankle. … Texas Rangers right-hander Kyle McClellan could miss the first month of the season because of a strained lat muscle. The Rangers scratched McClellan from his start today against the Mariners.