MIAMI — The loanDepot crowd here was about 90 percent for the Dominican team. The game, happily, was a lot closer than that.
This was a matchup of two of the most talented rosters ever assembled, and they did not disappoint a predictably raucous sellout crowd. It took until their semifinal game in this World Baseball Classic, but Team USA finally played to its billing in its thrilling 2-1 victory over the Dominican Republic that sent them to the finals Tuesday night against the winner of Monday’s Venezuela-Italy matchup.
Our band of All-Stars and all-timers, which seemingly sleepwalked through its first five WBC games, finally showed their real colors in a contest that resembled an All-Star game. The two teams and their star-studded rosters treated the crowd to big-time power, web gems and action galore. They even matched the hype.
“Tonight is going to be electric,” USA star Bobby Witt Jr. said before the game.
“It should be a lot of fun,” USA’s Bryce Harper said.
“This is what you dream about as a kid,” USA captain Aaron Judge said.
There were monstrous bombs by both sides. The D.R.’s Junior Caminero slammed one of the facing of the second decade off USA ace starter Paul Skenes, a rare pitcher to hold D.R. down (the Caminero drive was the only damage in Skenes’ 4 1/3 innings). Gunnar Henderson rocketed one deep into the left-field stands for Team USA in the fourth inning, and Roman Anthony followed with a drive that easily cleared the wall in right-center field and turned out to be the game winner thanks to five Team USA relievers putting up zeroes.
There were four-star plays. Judge gunned down an overexuberant Fernando Tatis Jr. trying to take third with two outs and Juan Soto due up next. USA’s Brice Turang laid out to rob Soto of a hit. The brilliant Witt Jr. turned a Soto bouncer into a 6-6-3 double play, then later made his patented dive in the shortstop hole to nail Manny Machado.
Julio Rodriguez went over the center field wall to take a homer away from Judge. The excitement was seemingly endless.
The crowd was as lively as expected, and there was lots to cheer on both sides. Chants of “U-S-A” broke out a couple times for the team that was finally living up to the names on the roster sheet. Team USA was very fortunate to qualify for this semifinal, but once here they showed they belonged on the field with a team that dominated its previous competition by a 51-10 count.
Caminero’s homer opened the scoring and broke the team record for homers in a WBC with 15 for the club that’s setting energy and enthusiasm records, too. Caminero whipped his bat halfway back to the DR bench, then danced around the bases, No one shows more joy than the Dominicans, who’ve looked like they are loving every minute of this event.
Soto said he’s having as much or more fun as he had in 2024, when he reached the World Series as a Yankee, or even 2019, when he won the World Series as a teenager with the Nats.
“The emotions on the field are unprecedented. You cannot compare them with anything,” Soto said before the game. “Wearing your country’s uniform, it’s very difficult to describe that in words. So many emotions, adrenaline that you feel through your body. I mean, I can’t describe it but I love to be part of this process.”
The WBC is a big hit worldwide. While this tournament may seem to many US fans like little more than a warmup before the main event — the MLB regular season — it feels like close to everything to several nations and their stars. Non-American players relish representing country rather than clothing (yes, their unis).
Team USA is more businesslike (some might say boring), but our guys put in a wonderful effort Sunday in the semis after three straight clunkers somehow magically qualified them for the final four. It’s fair to say we were due after barely outscoring a trio of overmatched opponents by a total of just two runs over 27 mostly mundane innings.
This game was nothing like those. Perhaps Team USA just plays to the level of the competition. To get here, it barely outdid a couple rosters filled with reclamation projects and even some retirees. But they looked like a different team against a lineup that included six nine-figure ($100M plus) players, including baseball’s two highest-paid players ever – Soto ($765M) and Vlad Guerrero Jr. ($500M).
Perhaps Team USA is catching the spirit that enveloped the other three semifinalists throughout. This marquee matchup gave the Americans a chance to make us all forget their dreary — even dreadful — preliminary performances.
Before arriving here, our guys looked great only on paper. But everything changed in this marquee matchup.
The pretournament favorite finally played a superb game. Maybe USA needed a real challenge because it certainly looked like a different squad here than it did in pool play and all the preliminaries in Houston.
