The Lenny DiNardo Blog

The Italian Job

So, I'm back from Belize. It. was. way. cool.

To the Lenny Biz:

As you may have heard, Lenny started Team Italy's second game of the WBC Tourney, which was against the Venezuela powerhouse. From all accounts, it was a pretty good outing and if the offense had actually come through when they had the bases loaded, Lenny wouldn't have gotten the loss. Alas, he did.

The good stuff:

• Faced 13 batters, retired 8.
• Got Miggy Cabrera to fly out and Magglio Ordonez to line out.
• Mike Piazza on Lenny:
  

  • "The kid that pitched," Piazza said, looking over at DiNardo, "he's going to inspire some Italian kids to pitch. And maybe some day one of those kids makes it to the major leagues . . . The reason we're playing is we're trying to get some interest to continue to grow baseball in

    Italy."

• Skipper Matt Galante on Lenny:

• "One thing about starting pitching in this series -- it's the first outing of the spring. When you talk about command, you're probably not going to have your best command in the first outing. I thought [DiNardo] kept us in the game. That's all we want from our starters, is to keep us in the game."

The Less-Than-Good Stuff:

• He got the loss (0-1 on the WBC).
• 6.75 ERA
• Wild Pitch.
• Balk (which put a runner in scoring position who then scored).
• 54 pitches, 28 strikes, 26 balls

This Dayton Beach News-Journal article had a really good take on Lenny's time with the Italian team. On his chances with the Red Sox after taking time off from Spring Training to play in the WBC:

"You never know. I feel like I'm getting a great experience out here throwing," DiNardo said. "I wouldn't have come out if I didn't get their blessing.  I talked to (general manager) Theo (Epstein), talked to (manager Terry Francona) during last season when I heard about this.  They thought it was a great opportunity.  I'll still be getting innings.

"They've seen me throw the last couple of years, so they know what I have.  If I was just signing on with the Red Sox this year it might be a different kind of story."

Now that Italy (1-2) didn't advance to Round 2, Lenny has re-joined the Sox.  His next stop, we will see...

UPDATE: The Herald had a short article on Lenny's 2 2/3 for Italy. Also, the pic above comes from the Herald article.

I'm off to Belize for a week - I'll be back on Sunday 3/12.

In the meantime, I'm missing the WBC first-round games. And let's be honest, Italy's got a tough pool and may not make it out of the 1st Round. We'll see what happens. Let's hope Lenny has some stong innings and doesn't hurt himself.

Again, here's Italy upcoming Schedule:

Tues. March 7	8:00 pm	Australia v Italy
Wed. March 8	7:00 pm	Italy v Venezuela
Thurs. March 9	1:00 pm	Italy v Dominican Republic

 

Go Lenny! Talk to you all in a week!

3 up, 3 down...

Today's exhibition game vs. the Detroit SS team:

Italy

IP

H

R

ER

BB

SO

HR

ERA

Dinardo

1.0

0

0

0

0

1

0

0.00

Yes.

The WSJ has a Sports Writer?

Yes, they do. A guy named Sam Walker. He didn't do any crazy sabermetrics or anything, but he did take a close look at the twisted ancestry rules of the World Baseball Classic:

For the Dutch and Italian teams, this presented the tantalizing possibility that even if they were born in Iowa, some of the top stars in the majors might have just enough native blood to don their national colors. The result was a winter-long scramble to identify U.S. players by their ethnic origins. The journey took team officials through immigration and birth records from Ellis Island to Italian towns like Potenza. Lawyers were brought in and genealogy experts consulted. Some players were forced to rummage through old boxes of family records and photos to document the exact birthplace of a grandfather. The Italian baseball federation alone spent five weeks and more than $20,000 researching the background of American players like Lenny DiNardo and Frank Catalanotto. "It was quite a workload," says the federation's Ricardo Schiroli.

Another interesting part of the article is the revelation that Lenny's time on the Italian roster might have been short-lived if not for the hard work of a local clerk:

Boston pitcher Lenny DiNardo nearly lost his spot because his great-grandfather hadn't been born in Potenza as the family thought, but a small town nearby (a local clerk found him by looking up every "Michele DiNardo" born in 1905 in the entire province).

And you thought this blog was intense...

Pics from Spring Training

So, I'm sure it was my whining below - but Boston.com finally posted some pics of Lenny from "Picture Day."  He's so Italian - hand motions and everything...

DiNardo embraces roots

The Boston Herald had a nice piece this weekend on Lenny's upcoming WBC tournament action. While Lenny seems excited about the whole thing, his roots to his homeland seem a bit attenuated.

“I’m not sure how they knew I qualified, other than the name, but I’m looking forward to this,” DiNardo said. “Baseball is not in the Olympics anymore, so this is the next best thing.”

His paternal grandfather, Michael, was born in Pogenza, Italy, in 1905 and emigrated to the United States in 1915. He died in 1986. No member of the immediate family has visited Italy other than a great-uncle while serving in the U.S. military in World War II.
“My mom’s family is Irish. I’m still waiting for them to call,” joked DiNardo, who was born and raised in Florida.

The best part of the article though is Lenny's enthusiasm for taking on Manny and Papi in the Pool D regionals.  What happens when your fight fire with fire?

Team Italy Schedule, Chances

Because it's a slow news day in LennyLand, we decided to take a look forward to Team Italy's schedule in the upcoming WBC.  As you may know, Italy landed in "Pool D" against its natural, historic rivals Australia, Venezuela, & the Dominican Republic. Whaaa?!  I'm not sure how exactly these pools were selected... Consider that "Pool A" stands for "Pool Asia" (Japan, China, Chinese Taipei, Korea) and "Pool B" stands for "Pool B..America" (USA, Canada, Mexico...and South Africa?). "Pool C" standing for "Pool Carribean" almost makes sense (Cuba, Panama, Puerto Rico...and then Netherlands?).  If it was actually meant to be a World Regional...split it up by Continent and just allow Europe to get slaughtered in the semifinals...don't just spread them out amongst the power players. Isn't Puerto Rico part of the USA anyway? Shouldn't we have had a Team California in there just for fun? If they did that, Nomar would have NO idea where he should have ended up.

Anyway...back to Italy's Pool D schedule (taking place in Orlando...so Lenny won't be that far from training camp).

Tues. March 7	8:00 pm	Australia v Italy
Wed. March 8	7:00 pm	Italy v Venezuela
Thurs. March 9	1:00 pm	Italy v Dominican Republic

Clearly, this is going to be a tough pool to get through. Right now Sportsbook.com has the DR at 7-4 to win the whole thing and Venezuela at 13-2.  At least the prognosticators haven't completely written Team Italy off...While Italy is at 200-1 odds to win the whole thing, Team Australia has 400-1 odds - only better than Chinese Taipei and South Africa.

Go Team Italia! Lenny the Stallion

The WBC rosters are out, and our man Lenny (with his 89 kg frame) is a proud member of Team Italia.