Minnesota Twins’ Joe Mauer up for the US Team’s World Baseball Classic Challenge
Joe Mauer is one of the more experienced and reliable guys with the Minnesota Twins. He has been playing for the ballclub for about nine seasons now and has been a part of their spring setup for 12.
This time around, however, it is a bit different as he will be leaving Spring Training halfway through to represent the US team in the World Baseball Classic. The US team will be playing its initial games between March 8 and10.
The catcher is, for now, doing what he generally has been doing every Spring Training before. His aim is obviously to be ready for the opening day of the season that arrives on April 1.
"It's my first time doing it so I'll have to prepare myself for playing in those games while also trying to get ready for April 1 as well," Mauer said."I'm going to try to be as ready as I can. I think in past World Baseball Classics, they've used like five
or six pitchers."
The US team will have three catchers in the line-up including Joe Mauer, Milwaukee Brewers’ Jonathan Lucroy and Toronto Blue Jays’ J.P. Arencibia.
There has been talk of over burdening early in the spring for the catcher but Joe Torre, the manager of the US team has said that the work load will be carefully managed and the Mauer will not be over burdened with work.
Ron Gardenhire, the manager for the Minnesota Twins was all praise for the US team manager and believes that the team is lucky to have someone like Torre. Ron is confident that he is aware of how to manage the players and also knows about taking care of
their health.
Joe Mauer for now is concentrating his work with the Twins. He said that the team had a meeting in which they discussed various aspects that made them successful over the years and the importance of paying attention to finer details to achieve success.
He said it was also a way to let the new faces in the team to have an idea of how things work in the Minnesota ballclub.
"In the meetings we had today, it was just about paying attention to the little things," Mauer said. "The little things are what made us successful over the years and that's how we've beat good teams. We have a lot of new faces in here so we just wanted
to let them know how it works around here."
Joe Mauer has been an asset for the Twins over the years and one can expect that to continue in 2013. It is likely that Joe will play a crucial part in the US team’s World baseball Classic campaign and may even help them in making to all the way to the end
of the event.
Tags: