Schneider: Classic lessons learned

03/10/2006
I don't think any of us realized at the time how important it was for us to come back and score those six runs in the fifth inning against the Canadian team. Even though we lost the game, that grand slam by Jason Varitek turned out to be a key moment for us in the first round.
Because of the way the tie-breaker worked -- runs against divided by innings played on defense -- that big inning added enough runs to the total against Canada so that Mexico only had to score three runs against them the following night to get us back into position to advance to Round Two.
It was an uncomfortable feeling having to hope for Mexico to score those three runs. I watched the play-by-play of the Canada-Mexico game on my laptop and I was tremendously relieved once Mexico scored those four runs in the first inning. Of course, we still had to go out and win against South Africa, but at least at that point our fate was back in our control.
We learned a valuable lesson about tournament play in the first round. We found out how important each game and each run is in a tournament like this. We realize that we can't afford to play mediocre; we have to bring our "A" game every time we step out on the field, score as many runs as possible and give our pitching staff some breaks.
We got a reprieve. Mexico helped us out and we took care of business against South Africa.
Now we don't want to get ourselves into a position where we have to rely on someone else again. We need to do whatever we can to control our own destiny. We have a second chance, and hopefully we can take advantage of the opportunity in the second round.
International baseball is a different kind of game with the tie breakers and all of the other things that can come into play. But if you go out and do what we need to do -- which is score runs, pitch well and win -- we can control our own destiny and hopefully make our way to San Diego.

Source: http://washington.nationals.mlb.com/