However, with Dieter’s eight innings of work Saturday, Stankiewicz and pitching coach Ricky Meinhold should have most–if not all–of their arms available, as the U.S. goes for its fourth straight gold medal.

“We feel good about what we have,” Stankiewicz said. “We have a lot of guys we can pitch tomorrow. We feel good about whoever we start and we obviously feel good about having a strong bullpen behind him ready to go . . . We just saw all these hitters (Friday) and so two days later we’ll be seeing them again, so I think we’ll have a pretty good understanding of how to attack their hitters. 

Everybody’s good. Everybody’s ready to roll.”

Eight games in, Team USA has proven they are the team to beat in Thunder Bay. They only need to stay unbeaten for one more.

“This is what we came here to do, to win this game (Sunday),” Dieter said. “To be able to give some rest to the rest of our pitchers and allow everyone to be on deck tomorrow was my goal (Saturday). I achieved that and it is all hands on deck tomorrow.

“Because we are going out to win a gold medal.”