The primary inning of Friday evening’s World Baseball Basic assembly between USA and Brazil had shades of Main League Baseball’s most fiery rivalry.
Moments after New York Yankees star Aaron Choose homered to offer Workforce USA an instantaneous 2-0 lead, Lucas Ramirez answered again within the backside of the inning with a leadoff homer for Brazil.
That’s proper, Manny Ramirez’s son. (Particularly, the youngest of his three sons, after Manny Jr. and Manuelito.)
Carrying his father’s No. 24, Lucas despatched right-hander Logan Webb’s 1-0 four-seam fastball, 392 ft to right-center at 104.1 mph.
It’s the second time this week the youthful Ramirez confirmed off his energy. He homered off two-time Cy Younger award-winner Jacob deGrom earlier this week in Brazil’s exhibition sport in opposition to the Texas Rangers.
Manny was a profession .312 hitter, nine-time Silver Slugger and 12-time All-Star, together with 11 consecutive seasons from 1998-2008, in his 19-year MLB profession. He received two World Sequence championships with the 2004 and 2007 Pink Sox (and was named collection MVP for the previous). He’s a top-10 offensive participant in franchise historical past in most metrics, together with on-base share, slugging share, OPS, complete bases, RBI, intentional walks, and extra-base hits. He’s one in every of six gamers to hit greater than 230 residence runs in a Pink Sox uniform (he hit 274).
These are massive footwear to fill.
Not like his father, who he’s referred to in interviews as his lifelong hitting coach, Lucas bats left-handed. The Angels chosen him within the 2024 draft, and he reached their Excessive-A degree final season. At 20 years previous, he’s one of many youngest gamers on this 12 months’s event.
However not the youngest, even on Workforce Brazil. Joseph Contreras, the 17-year-old son of 11-year MLB veteran Jose, pitched 1 1/3 innings in reduction Friday evening. The youthful Contreras should still be in highschool, however he acquired Choose to floor into an inning-ending double play within the second.
