The moment Team USA lost the World Baseball Classic, we knew this narrative was going to come out: the narrative that the team didn’t care enough for the name on their chest. But players like Bryce Harper and Logan Webb are not backing down and shutting the narrative down.

Logan Webb said, “I feel like there was a narrative that we didn’t care. That’s complete bullshit.” Adding to this, Harper had said after the game, “The worst notion that anybody had for Team USA is that we didn’t care.”

When the World Baseball Classic ended in defeat for Team USA, there were a lot of fans who were not happy. They formed a narrative that Team USA and everyone involved with the team didn’t care enough to win with “USA” on their chest. The fans said that the players were more interested in playing for their franchises than for their nation.

And the first name that came out was Tarik Skubal. They pointed out, saying that Skubal pitched only in one game against Great Britain when he could have pitched that one game in the playoffs. This got even worse after Skubal went back to camp and pitched 4.2 innings against the Blue Jays.

Fans even pointed out that in the final, Mark DeRosa had to agree to the Padres and didn’t play Mason Miller. This is probably why Team USA lost the game, because Venezuela wasted no time in striking back in the 9th inning with Eugenio Suárez.

But still, players like Logan Webb and Bryce Harper made it clear that they were there to win. Webb even doubled down, saying, “We probably cared the most out of every team, to be honest.” Webb said that they might not shout and jump around like other teams, but they do things differently. Players like Paul Skenes, who thought the team was not good enough, showed that the team did care.

Even Ken Rosenthal backed this by saying, “It’s a ridiculous narrative,” and called the criticism absurd. He added, “They cared a lot… they relished representing their country.” Rosenthal said that it was a baseball game, and it can always go either way. And on that day, it went the way of Venezuela. But the argument still stands: Did Team USA do enough to win that game?

What was the real reason Team USA lost to Venezuela, even with Bryce Harper’s homer?

If you look at how the WBC went for Team USA, you can find that there was one major part of the game that cost them the final against Venezuela. The offense of Team USA simply could not get going and set up in big moments. Across the semis and the final, at one point, the team had just 8 hits in 49 at-bats, and 20 batters had struck out. Players who were expected to lead the lineup were the worst among the lot.

Alex Bregman struggled so badly that he finished the tournament with an average of .143 and went 0-3 in the finals. Aaron Judge also struggled in the playoffs, going just 2-11 with 5 strikeouts. The worst was Cal Raleigh, who couldn’t even register a hit and went 0-9.

That this continued in the final as well. Team USA got only 3 hits and only one extra base hit, which was Bryce Harper‘s 2-run bomb. Other than that, it was just a single by Harper and Brice Turang. They were scoreless in 17 of their previous 18 innings entering that eighth inning.

As a result, every knockout win came by margins of 2 runs or fewer. This meant that the pitching department was under so much pressure that even a single run was a mountain to climb for the offense, and this is exactly why Team USA lost the World Baseball Classic finals.