Isaac Gramse ‘26
EE Sports Writer
The WBC is a very special event in baseball. Every four years, countries fight to be “the best in baseball”, and many exciting and memorable moments have come from the tournament. Starting in 2006 in efforts to expand baseball’s reach around the world, the World Baseball Classic has been the premier international baseball event; essentially what the World Cup is to the soccer world.
This year, the favorite to win the whole thing was Team USA, having a stacked lineup including Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper, and Cal Raleigh, among others. Their pitching was also set to be seen as a “nightmare rotation” headlined by Paul Skenes. The story for this team was Championship or Bust.
After a moment of uncertainty of if they were going to make it out of pool play due to a miscalculation from manager Mark DeRosa, the United States cruised to the finals, beating Canada 5-3, and taking down the powerhouse Dominican Republic 2-1. They were set to go to the finals and their opponent? Venezuela, who were appearing in their first WBC Final in the history of the tournament.
The Venezuelan team may not have had the likes of Aaron Judge or Bryce Harper, but it had great players like Gleyber Torres, Eugenio Suarez, and possible hall of famer Salvador Perez.
The pitching matchup was Eduardo Rodriguez of the Arizona Diamondbacks up against Mets rookie Nolan McLean. The game was scoreless up until the third inning when Maikel Garcia hit an rbi sacrifice fly that allowed Salvador Perez to score the first run of the game which was followed by a Wilyer Abreu home run in the fifth inning. Unfortunately for USA, their players had no response until the eighth inning, getting only 2 hits before then.
There was hope in the eighth inning, with Bryce Harper’s majestic two-run blast to tie the game. This was it, this was the US’s chance to take the lead and win their second title in WBC history; after Harper rounded the bases, Aaron Judge, who is highly considered as the best hitter of our generation, steps up to the plate and…strikes out to end the inning. But at the time it was alright, the USA just had to ensure that they make Venezuela put up a zero.
DeRosa pulled Griffin Jax to put in Garrett Whitlock to pitch the ninth and he immediately responded with a Luis Arraez walk and was pinch-run for by Javier Sanoja. After stealing second base, Sanoja would come around to score after a Eugenio Suarez rbi double all before the first out was made. Venezuela would not go on to score any more runs and going into the bottom of the ninth, Team USA was chasing one run.
How did it turn out? In short, Strikeout, Pop Out, Strikeout. Just like that, Venezuela won their first WBC title. The question is, what happened to the USA? Simply, they had a problem with their aggression at the plate. The US struck out 10 times in total and took pitches right down the heart of the plate one too many times. And when they were making contact, it was anything but good; aside from Harper’s home run, USA had only two other hits, both being singles and the outs that came that weren’t strikeouts were weak ground balls or pop flies.
In the end, Team USA falls just short after their loss to Venezuela, which is their second finals loss in a row after losing to Japan in the previous tournament. All that remains for the American baseball fans now is to wait another four years and hope for the best. But until then, Venezuela is the best in baseball.
Photo courtesy: Rebecca Blackwell, Associated Press