The final game of the 2026 World Baseball Classic was just that -- a classic.
Venezuela prevailed in a white-knuckled 3-2 victory over Team USA in Tuesday's final at loanDepot Park in Miami, and in doing so they secured their first ever WBC title.
Venezuela held a 2-0 lead until Bryce Harper's game-tying two-run home run in the eighth. In the ninth, though, Venezuela counter-punched the counter-punch when Eugenio Suárez doubled home pinch-runner Javier Sanoja for a 3-2 lead -- a lead that Venezuelan reliever Daniel Palencia made stand in the ninth for the history-making victory and his second save in as many days.
The U.S. had been vying to join Japan as the only nations to win multiple WBCs, but instead the Americans fell in the final game for a second straight tournament. For Venezuela and its raucous fan base that turned out in force for its two games in Miami, it's an unforgettable milestone for one of the richest sources of baseball talent in the world:
En route to winning the 2026 WBC, Venezuela went 6-1, with the lone loss coming to the Dominican Republic. Among their wins was another notable upset -- their 8-5 victory over Japan, the defending WBC champions, in the quarterfinals. Over those seven games, Venezuela outscored opponents by a margin of 43-21.
Now for some takeaways on a final game that lived up to expectations and then some.
Eduardo Rodriguez suffocated the US bats
The potent-on-paper Team USA lineup never really found its expected level in the WBC, at least against stronger competition in the knockout stages. However, the veteran lefty Rodriguez's effort in the finals was laudable in any context, especially for a pitcher who's struggled badly over the last two seasons:
Of his 57 pitches, 32 went for strikes, and he recorded five groundouts on the night. The US touched him for five hard-hit balls, but only Brice Turang managed to notch a hit off him with his groundball single in the third. Two of Rodriguez's strikeouts came against Aaron Judge. Rodriguez attacked the US with a five-pitch mix fronted by his two flavors of fastball, and his changeup was also quite effective. He struggled to command his breaking stuff toward the end of the fourth inning, and manager Omar López perhaps wisely pulled Rodriguez after he got the lefty-on-lefty out against Roman Anthony to open the fifth.
From there, the Venezuela bullpen -- working for a second straight day and the third time in the last four days -- kept Team USA down.
Clutch extra-base hits made the difference for Venezuela
Wilyer Abreu is surely among the most underrated players in baseball. The two-time Gold Glove winner and Red Sox outfielder has a WAR of 7.3 and an OPS+ of 118 through the first 275 games of his MLB career. During this WBC, he was also one of Venezuela's most consistent hitters. In the final against the U.S., he was one of Venezuela's loudest hitters, as evinced by his fifth-inning homer off a center-cut 0-1 fastball from Nolan McLean:
That one left the bat at 106.1 mph and traveled 414 feet to center. More to the point, it turned a precarious 1-0 Venezuela lead -- the result of a Maikel Garcia sac fly in the third -- into a less precarious 2-0 lead. Accordingly, it improved Venezuela's chances of winning the final from 64% to 75%, which is a sizable leap.
Every run wound up mattering for Venezuela, and that brings us to Eugenio Suárez's clutch eighth-inning double, which came not long after Bryce Harper stunned onlookers with his game-tying homer. Team USA reliever Garrett Whitlock, whom manager Mark DeRosa said pregame he hoped not to use on Tuesday, battled with Suárez for seven pitches with the potential go-ahead run on second, and that seventh pitch, a changeup, was the fated one:
That was a 3-2 lead, and that held up.
Harper gave the US a momentary charge
The tie game didn't last long, but Phillies masher Bryce Harper came up huge in the eighth inning, as he notched the game at 2-2 with a single swing. With two outs and one on, Venezuela reliever Andrés Machado confronted Harper with a 1-0 changeup that caught too much of the plate:
Harper didn't miss, to the tune of a 109.4 mph exit velocity and 432 feet of distance to center. The tie that Harper authored turned out to be short-lived, but at the time it breathed new life into the US cause. How big of a difference did it make? In one swing, Harper took Venezuela's chances of winning on Tuesday from 88% to 47%.
The US pitching staff made history in defeat
It's cold comfort from the American standpoint, but the Team USA pitching staff -- the best pitching staff the US has ever assembled for a WBC -- did its job. In a related matter, Paul Skenes, Tarik Skubal, and company also missed bats at a historic clip. Indeed, the 2026 USA pitching staff now leads all comers in WBC strikeouts:
- 2026 USA : 83
- 2023 Japan: 80
- 2009 Japan: 75
- 2013 Japan: 74
- 2017 Japan: 71
If you're looking for a goat on the US side, it's not the pitching staff.
Venezuela joins the ledger of WBC champions
Now for the bottom line. Venezuela now joins the exclusive company of nations to win the World Baseball Classic. Let's make it official, at least for our purposes:
|
2026 | Venezuela | United States | Maikel Garcia, Venezuela |
2023 | Japan | United States | Shohei Ohtani, Japan |
2017 | United States | Puerto Rico | Marcus Stroman, United States |
2013 | Dominican Republic | Puerto Rico | Robinson Canó, Dominican Republic |
2009 | Japan | Korea | Daisuke Matsuzaka, Japan |
2006 | Japan | Cuba | Daisuke Matsuzaka, Japan |
Prior to Tuesday night's outcome, just three countries -- Japan, the Dominican Republic, and the US -- had won the WBC. Venezuela, in thrilling and unforgettable fashion, makes it four.
