List of Phillies in the World Baseball Classic shrinks due to injury

Days ago, we, or I, gleefully brought you the list of Phillies playing in our planet’s penultimate international baseball tournament, the World Baseball Classic. From the high profile Odubel Herrera’s to the low level Nick Fanti’s, you now know who to root for when Israel plays Korea on March 6 at 5 a.m. EST (It’s Kenny Koplove).

But out original list, while comprehensive, has changed. Change occurs a lot in baseball. Our initial enthusiasm for the sport’s return every spring is often tempered by the revelation of some terrible injury to a cool player everyone loves. And at this sad point, that’s Freddy Galvis.

Now, now; calm down. Galvis is fine. But he’s tweaked his groin just enough playing in the Caribbean Series to pull out of the WBC. With Galvis out, for some reason it’s being repeated that Michael Saunders is also not playing for Canada, but he hasn’t been playing for a week.

The fresh-faced Hector Neris went unmentioned in our initial post as well. The Phillies reliever will be pitching for his native Dominican Republic, the defending champions of 2013 and just a frightening cluster of ballplayers who barely sneak under the legal threshold of talent installed by Interpol. Neris is currently being targeted by the media as an untapped column subject, so get ready to see fun facts about the 27-year-old on Twitter. Mostly though, check out the way he signs his checks.

In more critical news, also unavailable is a Team Venezuela t-shirt for sale, even in the WBC shop, for those of us who want to begin our Odubel Herrera fandom early this year without paying $257 for a jersey we probably won’t have the nerve to wear to work anyway.