![\"Team](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/59947d6bd330e9e713ee75b17cd30f51.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nEugenio Su\u00e1rez’s double at the top of the ninth drove in the tie-breaking run that led Venezuela to its first World Baseball Classic championship with a 3-2 win over the United States in Miami.<\/p>\n
Daniel Palencia sealed the victory in the bottom of the ninth when he worked a 1-2-3 inning to pick up his second save in as many nights and third of the tournament.<\/p>\n
Maikel Garcia, who drove in the game’s first run on a sacrifice fly, was named the MVP.<\/p>\n
He led the tournament with 10 hits while batting .385 with one homer and seven RBIs.<\/p>\n
“Every Venezuelan knows the effort we put in, and from where we come from,” said team captain and catcher Salvador Perez.<\/p>\n
“Even in the smallest parts of Venezuela, people were supporting us. Even people watching on little black-and-white TVs, on their \u200cknees, supporting us.<\/p>\n
“I just want to tell those people, ‘Thank you, from the bottom of my heart’ \u2026 we felt so much positivity.”<\/p>\n
Team USA lost in the World Baseball Classic final for the second consecutive time.<\/p>\n
The US, which won the 2017 title, lost 3-2 in the 2023 final to Japan.<\/p>\n
‘A moment of pride’<\/p>\n
Venezuela, which had never previously advanced to the final, beat defending champion Japan in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
It knocked out the Cinderella team of the tournament, first-time semifinalist Italy, before defeating the US.<\/p>\n
“This is a moment of pride, and it’s unforgettable,” Venezuela’s Luis Arr\u00e1ez said.<\/p>\n
“Getting this \u200cwin makes me so proud because we’re dedicating this to our country, which really needs to feel this right now.<\/p>\n
“It’s amazing to do this, especially in Miami. We got so much support from the people from Venezuela and a lot of Latin people here.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Venezuela had never previously won the World Baseball Classic in the tournament’s history. (Getty Images\/Capture At Media: Gene Wang\u00a0)<\/p>\n
Venezuela’s ninth-inning rally came immediately after Bryce Harper’s two-run homer off reliever Andr\u00e9s Machado (1-0) put Team USA \u200con the board, tying the game at 2-2 in the \u2060eighth.<\/p>\n
The home run broke a string of 21-plus scoreless innings by Venezuelan relievers.<\/p>\n
“I knew he was going to have a moment,” Mark DeRosa said of Harper.<\/p>\n
“That’s who he is. He has the ability to have big moments in big spots.<\/p>\n
“It hurts. We spent a special moment in my office after the game. I’ve watched him grow up in his career. I was just proud he was part of the team.”<\/p>\n
Other than Harper’s home run, Venezuela \u2060pitchers combined to allow only two hits to the powerful US line-up.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eugenio Su\u00e1rez’s double at the top of the ninth drove in the tie-breaking run that led Venezuela to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[64,63,4034,17856,2649,2755,5140,271197,85,1055,22474,143382,271196],"class_list":["post-548069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baseball","tag-bryce-harper","tag-final","tag-florida","tag-miami","tag-mikel-garcia","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-venezuela","tag-world-baseball-classic","tag-worldbaseball-classic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}