The MLBPA is serious about investigating leaks to reporters regarding Stephen Drew, Kendrys Morales - MLB

Interesting tweet from Buster:

Agents have received a document retention order from the union, in regards to contact with reporters. Stems from Morales/Drew investigation.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) April 22, 2014

This, I would suspect, stems from the thing a couple of weeks ago when the union got all huffy about anonymous MLB executives talking to Olney about how much money free agents Stephen Drew and Kendrys Morales might expect to be paid. The union claimed this violated the CBA — it could constitute collusion among teams to peg Drew and Morales’ price — and demanded that Major League Baseball investigate who the sources were for Olney’s report.

Clark may be technically correct that executives giving comments about free agents’ value is collusive and potentially violative of the CBA, but he’s also nuts if he thinks MLB is going to investigate who gave those comments. The league doesn’t see this as a big deal and, even if it did, when you start treading into investigating reporters’ sources, everyone in the media is going to turn on you. It’s a battle Clark isn’t going to win and probably shouldn’t be asking for.

This move, of course, is not a direct attack. It’s more like saber-rattling. The union is asking agents — over whom it has some regulatory power — to keep documents. It has no power to demand that clubs, let alone anyone in the media, obviously, do the same. It strikes me as a way to publicly say “we care about this, Major League Baseball, and we’re doing what we can to look into it. You do so too.” As posturing, it’s totally understandable. He may be able to get a couple of bullet points for some theoretical future grievance against the league regarding Drew and Morales. As an effective means of getting anything major done regarding the leaks specifically or Drew and Morales’ plight in general, well, it’s not going to do all that much.

What it will do, however, is light a fire under the media. A media which will probably paint this as an attack on a free press and stuff, even if that’s not really what’s going on here. It’ll be understandable if and when the media gets angry about this, of course, in that even if it isn’t really an assault on it, it treads closely enough to make everyone uncomfortable. Every time a governing body, be it an actual political one, a sports league or what have you, tries to sniff out sources, it loses the P.R. war before it begins.

I’m not sure why Clark wants this fight. I’m not sure how he gets anything out of it of significance.

MIAMI (AP) — Trea Turner and Paul Goldschmidt and an unrelenting U.S. lineup kept putting crooked numbers on the scoreboard, a dynamic display of the huge gap between an American team of major leaguers and Cubans struggling on the world stage as top players have left the island nation.

Turner homered twice to give him a tournament-leading four, driving in four runs to lead the U.S. to a 14-2 rout Sunday night and advance the defending champion Americans to the World Baseball Classic final.

Goldschmidt also homered and had four RBIs and Cedric Mullins went deep in a game interrupted three times by fans running on the field to display protest signs.

“The team kind of represents the government over there, and people aren’t too happy about it,” U.S. manager Mark DeRosa said.

The U.S. plays Japan or Mexico in Tuesday night’s championship, trying to join the Samurai Warriors as the only nations to win the title twice.

“I think it took us a little bit of time, but now we kind of found our stride a little bit,” Turner said.

Turner has a tournament-leading 10 RBIs. He followed his go-ahead, eighth-inning grand slam a night earlier against Venezuela with a solo homer in the second inning off Roenis Elias (0-1) and a three-run drive in the sixth against Elian Leyva.

“I kept saying every time he went deep, who is the idiot that’s hitting him ninth?” DeRosa said.

Cuba went ahead when its first four batters reached off Adam Wainwright (2-0) without getting a ball out of the infield. The 41-year-old right-hander recovered to strand the bases loaded.

“I put myself in that situation in the first place by making horrible PFP plays — or not making PFP plays,” Wainwright said in a reference to pitchers’ fielding practice.

American batters had 14 hits, including eight for extra bases, and seven walks. Goldschmidt hit a go-ahead, two-run homer in the first on a 112 mph rocket high over the left-field wall. He added a two-run single in the fifth.

“For me that was one of my favorite home runs I’ve ever hit in my entire life,” Goldschmidt said.

St. Louis third baseman Nolan Arenado left after he was hit on a hand by a pitch in the fifth inning, briefly raising another injury concern before X-rays came back as negative. Mets closer Edwin Díaz sustained a season-ending knee injury during the celebration that followed Puerto Rico’s win on Wednesday and Houston second baseman Jose Altuve broke a thumb when hit by a pitch while playing for Venezuela on Saturday.

Fans in the sellout crowd of 35,779 at loanDepot Park sounded evenly split between the U.S. and Cuba. Several hundred people gathered before the game outside the ballpark in Miami’s Little Havana section to protest the presence of the Cuban team, whose island nation has been under communist rule since 1959.

Play was briefly interrupted in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings when fans ran onto the field. The first held a banner that read “Libertad Para Los Presos Cubanos del 11 de Julio (Freedom for the Cuban Prisoners of July 11)” referring to the date of 2021 demonstrations.

“There were provocations, but we never paid attention to it,” Cuba manager Armando Johnson said.

Cuban fans roared in the early going when their team’s first four batters strung together three infield hits and a bases-loaded walk. Wainwright allowed one run and five hits in four innings. Cardinals teammate Miles Mikolas followed with four innings and Aaron Loup finished.

An Olympic gold medalist in 1992, 1996 and 2004, Cuba’s national team has struggled in recent years as many top players left for MLB. Cuba failed to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Games.

Cuba for the first time this year is using some players under contract to MLB clubs, including Chicago White Sox Gold Glove centerfielder Luis Robert and third baseman Yoán Moncada — who were booed. But many Cuban big leaguers were absent.

“We would like for the other players to join,” Johnson said. “They should think about it and return to Cuba.”

SECOND GUESSED

DeRosa on what he did after Saturday night’s come-from-behind quarterfinal win over Venezuela.

“I was reading how horrible a manager I was on social media first,” he said.

OTHER SIDE OF THE BRACKET

In the other semifinal, Japan starts 21-year-old sensation Roki Sasaki against Mexico and the Los Angeles Angels’ Patrick Sandoval on Monday night.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Moncada left after the third baseman collided in the sixth inning with left fielder Roel Santos, who caught Kyle Schwarber’s fly. Moncada was hit on the ribs but is OK, Johnson said.

UP NEXT

Arizona RHP Merrill Kelly is likely to start the final.