All it took to turn up the volume was a date with the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n
Facing a star-studded opponent inside a cauldron of noise at loanDepot Park, Team USA responded with its most stirring performance of the tournament. The team has a chance to cap it with a victory in the championship round on Tuesday, where it will face either Italy or Venezuela. But as Sunday evening bled into Monday morning, the players hung around the visitor\u2019s clubhouse at the Miami Marlins ballpark, savoring the victory.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes subdued the ferocious Dominican lineup for 4 1\/3 innings. Team USA captain Aaron Judge short-circuited a rally by cutting down speedy outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. at third base. Henderson and fellow youngster Roman Anthony supplied home runs that erased a one-run deficit in the fourth. The relief trio of Tyler Rogers, David Bednar and Mason Miller extricated itself from a variety of jams during the endgame.<\/p>\n
One of the few blemishes on a riveting night came at the conclusion. With the tying run at third base, Miller flung a full-count slider to Arizona Diamondbacks shortstop Geraldo Perdomo. The pitch cut through the center of the plate but dove several inches below the strike zone. Umpire Cory Blaser decided it was a strike, as he had for a similarly placed pitch to outfielder Juan Soto an inning earlier. Perdomo howled in a protest lost amid the din.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to focus on the last pitch,\u201d Dominican manager Albert Pujols said. \u201cObviously didn\u2019t go our way. Disappointed about the way that the game ends. But I don\u2019t want to criticize any of that. It just wasn\u2019t meant to be for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The shame of the conclusion was it detracted from all that came before it. In only its second decade of existence, the World Baseball Classic cannot yet surpass the tension and the terror of October baseball. The pitchers operate on stricter limits. Players are torn between representing their countries and being responsible to their employers. Yet at its apex, a level that Sunday\u2019s game approached, the WBC can deliver thrilling baseball and offer insight into the cornucopia of styles spread across the globe.<\/p>\n
The crowd of 36,337 favored the Dominican Republic. Although the concourse featured its collection of American partisans \u2014 fellows wearing New England Patriots jerseys and others wearing the wigs, waistcoats and breeches worn by the patriots of the Revolutionary War \u2014 the \u201cU-S-A\u201d chants were drowned out by Dominican fans\u2019 cowbells and drums. The percussion rattled the roof as D.R. starter Luis Severino struck out Team USA leadoff hitter Bobby Witt Jr. Severino roared and flexed after the strikeout, and did the same after fanning the next batter, Harper.<\/p>\n
Witt and Harper looked grim as they returned to the dugout \u2014 a continuation of what many outside the Team USA clubhouse have viewed as a dour approach to the WBC. The group has looked \u201cdry as hell,\u201d as longtime big-leaguer Cameron Maybin wrote on X<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019m talking like somebody just ate a whole pack of saltine crackers in the desert with no water in sight.\u201d<\/p>\n
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