The United States played Japan in the World Baseball Classic championship game on Tuesday night. However, the team was missing Aaron Judge, who is the most notable star to give the national duty a miss. This hasn’t gone down well with Team USA third baseman Nolan Arenado, who called out both Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton for not joining him on the Team USA.
“There’s no reason why the stars of our game should not be playing in this,” ESPN’s Jeff Passan cited Arenado telling earlier this week.
Arenado and first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, both from the St. Louis Cardinals, are the only two players from the 2017 WBC champion USA team to be back this year. In six games for the United States, he has hit .391 with five RBI, three doubles, and a triple.
AL MVP and home-run record holder Aaron Judge did not take part in the World Baseball Classic. His Yankees teammate and another big hitter Giancarlo Stanton. During separate interviews with Fox Sports, both power hitters explained their reasons behind skipping the national duty for WBC.
“It would be an honor to represent my country and play in that,” Aaron Judge told. “But my main goal is what I can do here in New York and what I can do to bring a championship back here. I think especially after signing a nine-year contract, for me, priorities are New York. Maybe four years down the road, hopefully, I can still make the team and get an opportunity to play. But right now for me, my focus is here.”
Stanton, who took part in the 2017 competition, had a similar line of thinking.
“I want to get ready for the season and I just want to have a healthy season, really,” Stanton told. “It’s one of the most fun baseball experiences that I’ve had, so I wouldn’t want to miss that unless there’s a bigger ultimate goal that I need to get to.”
Arenado was talking about the competition in general, but when Aaron Judge, the biggest of the MLB’s 2022 stars, didn’t join Team USA’s WBC campaign, it’s hard to see where else he could have been pointing his criticism.
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