{"id":539349,"date":"2026-03-16T03:50:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T03:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/539349\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T03:50:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T03:50:07","slug":"blown-call-ends-world-baseball-classic-semi-final-as-usa-squeeze-past-dominican-republic-world-baseball-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/539349\/","title":{"rendered":"Blown call ends World Baseball Classic semi-final as USA squeeze past Dominican Republic | World Baseball Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gunnar Henderson and Roman Anthony homered and the United States limited the Dominican Republic\u2019s electric offense to win a thrilling semi-final 2-1 on Sunday and move one win from capturing its second World Baseball Classic<\/a> championship.<\/p>\n

The Dominican Republic threatened in the ninth when Julio Rodr\u00edguez drew a walk and advanced to third against Mason Miller. With two outs, Miller struck out Geraldo Perdomo for his second save but the final pitch \u2013 on a full count and with the dangerous Fernando Tatis Jr up next \u2013 was several inches below the strike zone.<\/a> ABS<\/a> is not a part of the World Baseball Classic, so the Dominicans \u2013 who benefited from some missed calls themselves \u2013 were unable to challenge. Although the Americans\u2019 excellent pitching won the game rather than the umpiring, it was a dismal way to end what had been an enthralling contest.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat game cannot end like that. A shame,\u201d wrote ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan<\/a> on social media.<\/p>\n

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The loaded American roster led by NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes and featuring stars Bryce Harper and Aaron Judge, reached its third straight WBC title game after winning in 2017 and falling to Shohei Ohtani and Japan in 2023. The Americans will face the winner of Monday\u2019s semi-final between Italy and Venezuela in Tuesday\u2019s title game.<\/p>\n

The Dominicans reached the semis for the first time since winning the WBC title in 2013, but missing the championship was not the goal for a roster that featured six players who finished among the top 10 in MVP voting last year and cruised through the early rounds of this WBC.<\/p>\n

They faced their biggest test of the tournament against Skenes (2-0), who gave up one run on six hits through 4.1 innings, and the US bullpen, which held the Dominicans scoreless the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

Junior Caminero hit a solo drive off Skenes in the second to give the Dominicans a record 15 homers in the tournament, surpassing the mark set by Mexico in 2009. He finished the tournament hitting .350.<\/p>\n

The matchup between the two star-studded lineups didn\u2019t fail to deliver big moments, especially on defense.<\/p>\n

Judge got it started in the third with a 95.7 mph laser from right field to get Fernando Tatis Jr at third. The Yankees All-Star then found himself on the other side of a huge defensive play in the fifth when Rodr\u00edguez \u2013 an inning after being hit on the wrist by a 98 mph fastball from Skenes \u2013 scaled the center-field wall<\/a> to rob Judge of a home run.<\/p>\n

Henderson, starting at third base over Alex Bregman, homered off Luis Severino to tie it in the fourth before Anthony hit the go ahead homer, connecting on a 3-2 sinker from loser Gregory Soto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gunnar Henderson and Roman Anthony homered and the United States limited the Dominican Republic\u2019s electric offense to win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-539349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}