Team USA rebounded after losing to Italy and won against the Dominican Republic, only to go down against a first-time WBC finalist, Venezuela. There could be many names to blame. Aaron Judge, who couldn’t rise when the team needed him the most. Tarik Skubal, who left the team for MLB duties. The loss was particularly frustrating as it nullified a clutch, game-tying home run from Bryce Harper, shifting the focus from player heroics to managerial miscues. Fans are now calling out Team USA’s manager, Mark DeRosa, for the debacle.

“Team USA cannot bring back mark derosa.. need new leadership, and it starts with the Olympics,” JomBoy Media’s JoezMcfly shared via X.

DeRosa got a Ferrari to drive in the 2026 WBC with that star-studded lineup. With names like Aaron Judge, Alex Bregman, Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal, and Kyle Schwarber, DeRosa’s Ferrari was waiting to speed up, but having a Ferrari is not enough. One needs to know how to manage that when the roads are bumpy. According to fans, there are several botched decisions DeRosa made in this WBC that have led them to question his leadership.

DeRosa benched Gunnar Henderson for Bregman in the final. Henderson was the most productive slugger of Team USA. He scored 2 HRs at .400+, including that homer in the fourth inning against the Dominican Republic. Still, DeRosa went for Bregman to pose a right-handed challenge to the left-handed Eduardo Rodriguez.

However, Bregman failed to make an impact, scoring nothing from three at-bats, and ending the tournament with a meager .143 average. This is the reason JoezMcfly thinks Team USA needs new leadership by the time they play in the LA28.

That’s not all. Mark DeRosa made a botched decision in terms of pitching choice as well. With the score leveled at 2-2, DeRosa filed Garrett Whitlock as relief, which left the fans wondering about Mason Miller. Whitlock allowed a walk and a go-ahead run on an RBI double from Eugenio Suarez. In contrast, in the previous game against the Dominican Republic, Miller took out two batters in a perfect ninth inning.

So, with such botched decisions, Team USA couldn’t get over the charged-up Venezuelan side. Even though Bryce Harper’s homer in the eighth leveled the score 2-2, credit to DeRosa’s pitching choice, Venezuela made that 3-2 by the next inning. And with Team USA going down in the final, fans have rightly chosen to call out Mark DeRosa.

Mark DeRosa gets called out by the fans

Fans think Team USA did not deserve to win with all those decisions. “USA deserved to lose simply and solely because of Mark DeRosa. I’ve never seen someone p*** away any shot of being a major league manager in that short of a time frame like this before,” one fan said.

“Mason Miller can’t be considered a “sore loser” because he never got a chance to be on the mound since Mark DeRosa shat the bed by putting in Whitlock instead,” another added.

In the WBC, Miller already recorded 35 pitches at 100+ mph. With that velocity, he overwhelmed the hitters, and that was evident against the Dominican Republic. In total, he recorded 10 SOs across four scoreless innings in the tournament. But DeRosa found Whitlock, who finished the tournament with a 2.70 ERA, a better choice.

“Mark Derosa is the biggest fraud in sports history,” one user took a direct jibe at Team USA’s manager. “Mark DeRosa might have killed all chances of being a real manager one day over the last week, plus with all the sh*t he did and said. Quite a feat in such a short time,” another added. 

While the 2026 WBC final was the final nail in the coffin for many, issues with DeRosa’s leadership started showing a week earlier. Before an important pool play game against Italy, DeRosa confidently said, “It’s weird. We want to win this game even though our ticket’s punched to the quarterfinals.” However, following the loss to the Italians, he admitted that he “misspoke” about the tiebreaker math.

These kinds of blunders and lack of situational awareness have earned him a comparison to Rob Thomson. “Mark DeRosa is nothing more than Rob Thomson 2.0 in big games,” another user remarked.

Thomson has the highest winning ratio in the Phillies (.580), but has yet to win a World Series ring with them. Similar to DeRosa, Thomson is infamous for blowing up chances in the big games. In Game 2 of the 2024 NLDS, Thomson was criticized for leaving Christopher Sanchez on the mound till the sixth inning, even though it was clear that he was out of gas. Fans relate the same to how DeRosa managed his bullpen tonight.

Mark DeRosa managed Team USA in both the 2023 and 2026 WBC, and both times he lost in the final. This time, though, with the LA28 Olympics in sight, his decisions have made it a debate not about whether he can take the team to Olympic glory. But about whether he is the right man for the job altogether.