{"id":220606,"date":"2026-03-15T09:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T09:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/220606\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T09:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T09:30:19","slug":"venezuela-rallies-to-eliminate-defending-champion-japan-in-wbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/220606\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela rallies to eliminate defending champion Japan in WBC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Wilyer Abreu hit a go-ahead, three-run homer after Maikel Garcia sparked the comeback with a two-run shot, and Venezuela beat Dodgers<\/a> star Shohei Ohtani<\/a> and defending champion Japan 8-5 in the World Baseball Classic on Saturday night to advance to the semifinals.<\/p>\n

Venezuela reached its first WBC semis since 2009 and clinched a spot in the six-nation field for the 2028 Olympic baseball tournament, along with the United States and the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n

Venezuela will face unbeaten Italy on Monday, a day after the U.S. plays the Dominicans.<\/p>\n

Abreu gave Venezuela a 7-5 lead when he homered off loser Hiromi Itoh in the sixth, driving a 2-1 four-seam fastball 409 feet to right for his first home run of the tournament. Ezequiel Tovar made it 8-5 in the eighth, leading off with a double then scoring on a throwing error by Atsuki Taneichi on a pickoff attempt.<\/p>\n

Ohtani\u2019s third home run of the tournament wasn\u2019t enough for Japan, which had its 11-game WBC winning streak snapped.<\/p>\n

Ohtani, the 2023 WBC MVP, led off the bottom of the first by lifting a 2-1 slider from Ranger Su\u00e1rez 427 feet to center after Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. homered on the second pitch from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, driving a fastball 401 feet to right-center for his second home run of the WBC.<\/p>\n

Enmanuel De Jesus pitched 2\u2153 scoreless innings for the win, and Daniel Palencia got the save, ending Japan\u2019s fate by getting Ohtani to pop out for the final out.<\/p>\n

Japan led 5-2 after a four-run third in which Shota Morishita, who replaced the injured Seiya Suzuki at center field, hit a tiebreaking, three-run homer off Su\u00e1rez. The veteran left-hander who picked up a win in a group stage game against the Netherlands pitched 2\u2154 innings on Saturday, allowing three hits, five runs and two home runs.<\/p>\n

Garcia homered on the eighth pitch against Chihiro Sumida to pull Venezuela within 5-4 in the fifth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wilyer Abreu hit a go-ahead, three-run homer after Maikel Garcia sparked the comeback with a two-run shot, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[100913,100919,96605,2641,100918,48,52,51,47,50,49,100916,50605,24843,100917,422,100914,9298,40746,100915,1543],"class_list":["post-220606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-champion-japan","tag-dominicans","tag-first-home-run","tag-foot","tag-four-seam-fastball","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-maikel-garcia","tag-ranger-suarez","tag-saturday-night","tag-scoreless-innings","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-three-run-homer","tag-venezuela","tag-wbc","tag-wilyer-abreu","tag-win"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}