![\"garcia-getty.png\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/garcia-getty.png\")
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Getty Images<\/p>\n
For the first time ever, Team Venezuela are champions of the World Baseball Classic. Venezuela outlasted the United States in a thrilling WBC Championship Game Tuesday night in Miami (VEN 3, USA 2<\/a>). After Bryce Harper<\/a> tied the game with a two-run homer in the eighth, Eugenio Su\u00e1rez<\/a> drove in the go-ahead run with an RBI double in the top of the ninth. <\/p>\n Kansas City Royals<\/a> third baseman Maikel Garcia<\/a> was named WBC MVP after going 10 for 26 (.385) with 7 RBI in Venezuela’s seven games. Those 10 hits were two more than any other player in the WBC. Garcia hit a two-run home run in Venezuela’s upset win over Japan and drove in the go-ahead run against Italy in the semifinal. He also had a sac fly in the Championship Game.\u00a0 <\/p>\n In addition to his stellar work at the plate, Garcia also made several highlight reel plays in the field and was a standout defensively. He was an impact player on both sides of the ball in a tournament where the margin of error is so small and pitch limits mean there is a premium on turning batted balls into outs. Garcia did that and then some. <\/p>\n Last year, Garcia, 26, broke out with the Royals, hitting .286\/.351\/.449 with 39 doubles and 23 stolen bases. He also won a Gold Glove at third base. It adds up to 5.6 WAR season and earned Garcia a five-year, $57.5 million contract extension in December. Garcia will be a centerpiece player for Venezuela for many WBCs to come.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Daisuke Matsuzaka (Japan in 2006 and 2009), Robinson Can\u00f3 (Dominican Republic in 2013), Marcus Stroman<\/a> (USA in 2017), and Shohei Ohtani<\/a> (Japan in 2023) have previously won WBC MVP honors. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images For the first time ever, Team Venezuela are champions of the World Baseball Classic. Venezuela outlasted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[12945,363,99,238499,226972,238500,72364],"class_list":["post-530510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-maikel-garcia","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-venezuela-wbc","tag-wbc","tag-wbc-mvp","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}