In the title hunt

U.S. team seeks first title in tournament

Yelich, Stanton primed for Baseball Classic.

The call to serve couldn’t have come from a much higher authority, in Christian Yelich’s view.

It was October, not long after an arduous season that concluded with the tragic death of Marlins teammate Jose Fernandez. The voice on the phone immediately ignited Yelich’s enthusiasm for baseball again.

Joe Torre, chief officer for Major League Baseball, wanted to know if Yelich wanted to join Team USA in the 2017 World Baseball Classic.

“It was pretty cool, especially from someone like Joe Torre, to have him call you and ask you to play for the United States of America,” said Yelich, who will be wearing the nation’s colors along with fellow Marlins outfielder Giancarlo Stanton in the four-nation Pool C first round this weekend at Marlins Park.

“I was like, hell yeah, I’m in right away. It was something I really wanted to do.”

Yelich, making his WBC debut, and Stanton, who played in 2013, will help the American team try to make a serious title run that has eluded it the previous three times the tournament

has been staged.

Team USA is considered co-favorite in the 16-nation event with the defending champion Dominican Republic.

Those two teams will meet Saturday (6:30 p.m.) in the most anticipated firstround matchup, which is already a sellout. Canada and Colombia are the other teams in the Miami roundrobin.

The Americans have never finished higher than fourth place and are just 10-10 all-time in the WBC.

That is partly due to the reluctance of some of the best players to participate.

New York Mets All-Star right-hander Noah Syndergaard was openly dismissive, saying he wasn’t playing “because I’m a Met, and ain’t nobody made it to the Hall of Fame or win the World Series playing in the WBC.”

Other prominent Americans missing include Clayton Kershaw, Mike Trout and Bryce Harper.

Perhaps not a Dream Team, but the U.S. will field a potent lineup with the likes of Andrew McCutchen, Buster Posey, Paul Goldschmidt, Eric Hosmer (American Heritage-Plantation), Nolan Arenado, Adam Jones and Daniel Murphy in addition to Stanton and Yelich. The pitching staff is light on big names but will have super reliever Andrew Miller in the bullpen.

Are they strong enough to contend with other MLB-rich rosters, notably the Dominican Republic and Venezuela?

“I think I might be one of the only guys to never be in an All-Star Game, so it’s a pretty good team,” Yelich said. “Guys I’ve talked to are excited, and I’m excited.

“I think the whole goal is to win it. Everyone is going to play so we can win.”

Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz, who will be part of the broadcast team on the MLB Network, said performance is difficult to predict at a time of year when major league players are early in spring training. He pointed out that there isn’t an emphasis among American players on playing year-round as in some other countries.

“I’ve always said that until the U.S. gets to the finals it’s hard to not look at that as unsuccessful,” Smoltz said, while recognizing that “there’s a lot more pressure on these guys to perform right away.”