NFL
By Jason Gulden
The World Baseball Classic is over, and what a tournament it was.
The quarterfinals would start on March 13th with a familiar North American matchup. We saw this a couple of weeks ago at the Olympics in both the men’s and women’s hockey gold medal games. It was now baseball’s turn to get its crack at Canada.
The USA sent Logan Webb of the San Francisco Giants to the mound. He faced off against Canada’s Michael Soroka of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The USA would get on the board at the top of the first after Bobby Witt Jr, of the Kansas City Royals, would come around to score after leading the game off with a walk.
Top of the 3rd, Canada got a little sloppy. A throwing error by their 3rd baseman would score 2 runs for the USA.
The score would stay 3-0 USA until the top of the 6th. The USA would use back-to-back singles to score Roman Anthony of the Boston Red Sox and Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners.
In the bottom of the 6th, Canada would get on the board with a 3-run inning of their own. Big hit of the inning came from Bo Nayler of the Cleveland Guardians. He hit a 2-run homer to right center, which followed an RBI single from Tyler Black of the Milwaukee Brewers.
The USA would continue its dominance over Canada for the last couple of weeks with a 5-3 victory.
Logan Webb would go 4 2/3 innings, allowing 0 runs with five strikeouts while allowing four hits. Mason Miller of the San Diego Padres would come in the ninth to strike out the side to earn his first save of the WBC.
With the loss, Canada’s run in the WBC would be over.
The USA, having won, would advance to the semifinals, where it would take on the Dominican Republic.
That game would take place on Sunday, March 15th. After playing pool play and the quarterfinal game at Daikin Park in Houston, USA, they traveled to LoanDepot Park in Miami for the rest of the WBC.
Coming into the game, the Dominican Republic was not a team you wanted to face off against in any game. The Dominican Republic had scored 51 runs in 5 games. That’s an average of 10.2 runs per game.
On the other hand, the USA offense struggled after the first two games of the tournament. After scoring 24 runs in the initial two games, the USA scored only 16 runs across the next three games. That totals 40 runs, averaging 8 runs per game.
On paper, it looked like the USA would have its hands full with the Dominican Republic. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s why you play the games.
In baseball, great pitching shuts down great offense, and that’s exactly what the USA got in the game.
The USA would trail early in the bottom of the 2nd after a solo homer from Junior Caminero of the Tampa Bay Rays. With how dominating the Dominican Republic lineup had been, that’s the only run they would get in the game.
The Dominican Republic had multiple chances to get runs across the plate in the game. There were at least 3 different times when they had runners at 3rd and 2nd with less than 1 out and failed to score.
Now, the USA would need to get at least 2 runs to take the lead and move on to the finals of the WBC. Well, they got those two runs off the bats of Gunner Hunderson of the Baltimore Orioles and Roman Anthony of the Boston Red Sox. They would each hit a solo homer in the top of the 4th to put the USA up 2-1.
Just like I said, great pitching stops great offense in baseball, and that’s what the USA got in the game. Reigning National League Cy Young Winner, Paul Skenes, would go 4 1/3 innings, allowing 1 run on 6 hits while striking out 2 to improve to 2-0 in the WBC.
In the final 3 innings, the USA pitchers combined to strike out 6 of the 9 Dominican Republic hitters.
With the loss, the Dominican Republic would see its WBC end. The USA would advance to the finals to take on the winner of the other semifinal, Italy/Venezuela.
Italy had been the talk of the tournament with their Expresso Machine in the dugout. After each of their home runs, that player would get a shot of Expresso as part of the home run celebration. Unfortunately, for Italy and all of baseball, they would lose to Venezuela 2-1 in the semifinals.
This would set up a matchup between the USA and Venezuela for the 2026 WBC championship.
Coming into the game, Venezuela’s best finish in the WBC was 3rd in 2009. The USA would win the whole tournament in 2017 with an 8-0 victory over Puerto Rico. They would fall to Japan in the championship game of the 2023 tournament, 3-2.
Pitching matchup for the game would be Arizona Diamondback Eduardo Rodriguez for Venezuela and New York Mets rookie pitcher Nolan McLean.
Venezuela would get the scoring underway in the 3rd inning with a sacrifice fly off the bat of Kansas City Royals Maikel Garcia to score his Royals teammate Salvador Perez from 3rd. In the top of the 5th, Wilyer Abreu would hit a solo homer to center to make it 2-0 Venezuela.
That’s where the score would stay until the bottom of the 8th. Then, Philadelphia Phillies superstar Bryce Harper tied the game with a 2-run homer.
With the game tied at 2 heading into the 9th inning, Venezuela would send San Francisco Giants’ Luiz Arraez to the plate. He would take a 5-pitch walk. Then, he would be pinched run by the Miami Marlins, Javier Sanoja. On the 4th pitch to Cincinnati Reds Eugenio Suarez, Sanoja would steal second. 3 pitches later, Eugenio would hit an RBI double to center to score Sanoja to put Venezuela up 3-2.
Before the game, MLB teams had contacted both the USA and Venezuela regarding the availability of their pitchers. One of the teams that contacted Venezuela was the Chicago Cubs regarding their closer, Danial Palencia.
The Chicago Cubs told Venezuela that the only way Palencia would be available would be if it were a save opportunity.
Well, good thing for Venezuela, it was a save opportunity, and Daniel Palencia would be able to pitch in the ninth. 11 pitches later, Team Venezuela was celebrating as they won the 2026 World Baseball Classic.
The USA would fall once again in the championship game on the same field as 2023 by the score of 3-2, and the final batter would strike out swinging.
Maikel Garcia of the Royals would win the MVP.
Closing
With the World Baseball Classic being officially over now, the players in this tournament will now turn their attention to the regular season. That gets all underway on Wednesday night, the 25th, when the Major League Baseball season gets rolling.
I’ll be back during the season with my thoughts on the Chicago Cubs and all Major League Baseball.
Looking forward to an exciting 2026 baseball season. The countdown has begun!!!!!
