In star-filled matchup, United States beats Dominican Republic to reach WBC final

Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald on Mar 15, 2026

Published in Baseball

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MIAMI — Sunday’s World Baseball Classic semifinal was as much a chess match as it was a heavyweight bout between two of the top teams in the tournament.

The star power between the United States and Dominican Republic arguably rivaled any matchup seen on a baseball diamond before. MVPs, Cy Young winners, All-Stars litter both rosters.

So every calculated decision carried enhanced magnitude with a spot in the tournament final on the line.

“It’s what the world wants to see,” USA manager Mark DeRosa said of the matchup.

“This is two powerhouses that are coming in,” Dominican Republic manager Albert Pujols added. “We’ll see what happens from there.”

In the end, the United States did just enough to best the Dominican Republic in a 2-1 win at Miami’s loanDepot park to advance to the World Baseball Classic final for the third consecutive time. The Americans, who will face the winner of Monday’s semifinal between Italy and Venezuela in the championship on Tuesday, won the tournament in 2017 and were runner-up to Japan in 2023.

The United States did a little bit of everything to get the win.

There were a couple big hits, with Gunnar Henderson and Roman Anthony hitting solo home runs in the fourth inning — Henderson against Luis Severino, Anthony against Gregory Soto — to erase an early 1-0 deficit.

There was plenty of high-end defense — namely an Aaron Judge throw from right field to gun down Fernando Tatis Jr. trying to go from first to third in the third inning and Bobby Witt Jr. dazzling with his footwork and quickness to turn an inning-ending double play in the fifth.

And there was clutch pitching, led by reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes’ 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball followed by 4 2/3 shutout innings from the bullpen, that contained a Dominican lineup that entered Sunday averaging 10.2 runs per game to just one run.

“He is one of the best pitchers — if not the best — in the game,” Pujols said pregame of Skenes. “Probably hard to hit, but he’s not invincible.”

Except ... he nearly was invincible.

The Dominican Republic managed six hits against Skenes. Junior Caminero hit a home run off him in the second inning, when he got all of a Skenes sweeper that just clipped the top outside corner of the strike zone and sent it 401 feet to left-center field. It was the DR’s tournament-record 15th home run, besting Mexico’s mark of 14 home runs from the 2009 iteration of the tournament.

That’s the only run Skenes allowed. Judge’s throw in the third to nab Tatis eliminated Skenes’ first potential threat with runners on the basepaths. In the fourth, Skenes stranded the bases loaded when he got Austin Wells to fly out to left field.

He was pulled in the fifth after giving up back-to-back one-out hits to Tatis and Ketel Marte. Reliever Tyler Rogers — who joined the United States team on Friday — got out of the jam when he got Soto to hit a grounder up the middle that Witt turned into a web-gem double play.

Griffin Jax tossed a perfect sixth before David Bednar escaped a seventh-inning jam with two on and one out by striking out Tatis and Marte.

Garrett Whitlock pitched a perfect eighth.

And then Mason Miller shut the door with a scoreless ninth, working around a one-out walk to Julio Rodriguez, to send the United States back to the championship game.

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