MIAMI – Three cheers for the Red, White and Blue. Make that the black and blue.
A trip to Los Angeles for the semifinals of the World Baseball Classic is the carrot tonight for Team USA, but the way things are going, manager Davey Johnson sounded thankful yesterday that he’ll even have enough healthy players to field a team.
But don’t expect Johnson to get too creative with his 11 remaining position players. The manager yesterday revealed he would forfeit a game, even if it meant elimination, rather than risk injury to a player by asking him to play a foreign position.
The topic arose when somebody asked Johnson what he would do if he needed a third catcher.
“I damn sure wouldn’t want to be lynched or hung up in some city if I put [Kevin] Youkilis behind the dish or something,” Johnson said.
“I would definitely [have] . . . gone out and said we had to forfeit this ballgame. Yeah, I’d forfeit it.”
Johnson isn’t anticipating anything nearly that extreme tonight, but he does have concerns about his depleted roster.
An MRI exam performed on reliever Matt Lindstrom revealed a rotator-cuff strain, making the right-hander unavailable for the WBC’s remainder.
Johnson also said he has no intention of playing outfielder Ryan Braun, who was scheduled to undergo an MRI on his right side.
Chipper Jones (oblique) was sent back to the Braves on Sunday, a day after Dustin Pedroia (oblique) returned to the Red Sox.
Without prompting, Johnson also revealed that David Wright took a knee to the head while attempting to break up a double play in Sunday’s 9-3 victory over the Netherlands, and that Youkilis “tweaked” a muscle in his shoulder and neck area. Both are expected to play tonight for the US, which faces last night’s Venezuela-Puerto Rico loser.
It was tough enough for the US to lose a quarter of its team between the day rosters were released and the start of the tournament, but the last few days have been more troubling.
Johnson blames bad luck and the timing of the WBC.
“For my guys, probably not a lot of them are [accustomed to] playing big games this time of year,” Johnson said. “They are gamers, and they’re going 100 percent. Things can happen.”
The US caught a break with the timing of Pedroia’s injury, because it occurred before the start of the second round on Saturday, allowing the team to make a roster change. Brian Roberts was added, giving Johnson another All-Star at second base.
But Jones, Lindstrom and Braun cannot be replaced until after this round, if the US advances. Things got so bad on Sunday that Johnson briefly used catcher Brian McCann to play left field.
mpuma@nypost.com
