The World Baseball Classic Came Down To Japan Vs. The Phillies

MIAMI, FL — The swing that put Team USA in the lead on Tuesday night's World Baseball Classic finale had no right analog in its own sport.

It was a smooth sweep into the distance of the Florida night, an almost gentle maestrolike flourish that more resembled a Rod Brind'Amour wrist shot than the Bondsian tomahawk so totemic to the sport.

But Trea Turner's graceful cut, sending the head of the bat in an arc from the middle of the plate to where he held it suspended high above his head, sent the ball searing over the left field wall. It traveled 406 feet at 107 miles per hour, according to Statcast.

Though Team USA lost to Japan in a chess match for the record books, 3-2, it wasn't due to lack of support from Turner and his Phillies teammates.

Turner's homer was his whopping seventh of the tournament, by far the most among all players. It was followed a few innings later by a more traditional, brute force home run swing by Kyle Schwarber. Both of Team USA's runs in the championship came from the Phillies.

And it wasn't just the final. During the entirety of the Classic, Team USA's three starting Phillies, Turner, Schwarber, and J.T. Realmuto, combined for an absurd 1.259 on base plus slugging percentage (OPS). The rest of Team USA, filled with most of the best players in the world like Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, Nolan Arenado, and Paul Goldschmidt, combined for an .819 OPS.

It's an even more impressive showing from Philadelphia considering that the best Phillie of them all, Bryce Harper, couldn't participate due to his ongoing recovery from elbow surgery.

Though Team Phillies — Team USA — came up short, the Classic as a whole and the finale alone were baseball at its best. Loyalties were tested and turned on their heads every night. The three Philly players celebrated in dugouts alongside archrivals from the Dodgers, Mets, and worse, the Astros. Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani, who hits and pitches, faced off against his Los Angeles Angels teammate, Trout, in the championship game's final at-bat. And across the world, players and fans were treated to the sort of raw, amateur, grassroots, Olympian passions and connections that are sometimes lost in the world of professional sports.

On a stage packed with international superstars, it was Turner, who the Phillies added this offseason on an 11-year, $300 million contract, who turned as many heads as anyone.

And that swing may have a prologue after all. Team USA's hitting coach is none other than legendary '90s slugger Ken Griffey Jr., who was the only player to hit two home runs in a World Baseball Classic Game until Turner did it against Cuba in the semifinal. It was impossible to watch footage of Griffey's work in the cages with Turner and others in the past few weeks and not see, clear as the white of the ball soaring into the night, Turner's swing in Griffey's own iconic power swing from a generation ago: a long, sweeping arc, an effortless gesture, the bat lingering in the air after the hit, the stillness belying the magnitude of the deed done.