Team USA is through to the WBC Semifinals, the Dominican Republic is waiting for them in Miami
Team USA is one win away from the championship game after beating Canada 5-3 on Friday night in Houston. The Dominican Republic demolished Korea 10-0 in the other quarterfinal, ending the game in the seventh inning on an Austin Wells three-run homer that triggered the mercy rule. USA and DR meet Sunday at 8 PM ET in Miami on FS1.
The win over Canada was not pretty and everyone in that dugout knows it. Team USA entered as an -800 favorite and nearly blew a 5-0 lead in the final three innings against a bullpen full of minor leaguers. This lineup, loaded with All-Stars, was kept in check by the likes of Micah Ashman and Matt Wilkinson, two relievers without a single big league inning between them.
That is not a sentence anyone expected to write heading into this tournament.
The Americans did score in the first. Bobby Witt Jr. led off with a walk, Aaron Judge doubled him to second, and Kyle Schwarber grounded into one of the stranger outs of the tournament, a ball that bounced out of Josh Naylor’s glove and into second baseman Edouard Julien’s for a 3-4 putout at first, but Witt scored to make it 1-0.
The lead grew to 3-0 in the third when Abraham Toro charged a Bregman squibber and sailed the throw over Naylor’s head, allowing both runners to score. Soroka could not make it out of the third.
Logan Webb was stretched to 71 pitches and delivered 4â…” scoreless innings, allowing four hits and a walk while striking out five. He was good.
The middle relief was not. In the sixth, with Canada going to a paper-thin bullpen, Team USA pushed the lead to 5-0 on a Brice Turang single up the middle and a Pete Crow-Armstrong RBI single to center.
Then Canada woke up. Tyler Black singled in a run and Bo Naylor crushed a three-run homer off Gabe Speier to suddenly make it 5-3.
The seventh inning was genuinely tense. A passed ball by Cal Raleigh put two runners in scoring position with nobody out. David Bednar came in, got Josh Naylor on an infield pop-out, and then struck out Tyler O’Neill and Owen Cassie back to back.
David Bednar gets out of the jam
Garrett Whitlock threw a clean eighth. Mason Miller closed it out in the ninth. Houston mission accomplished.
Now for the hard part. Team USA vs Dominican Republic.
The Dominican Republic is a completely different conversation. That lineup has hit a WBC record-tying 14 home runs in this tournament and just ran Korea off the field in six innings.
Of their top seven hitters, Manny Machado had the lowest OPS. That was the floor. This is the team that has taken the entire tournament by storm while Team USA has been quietly stumbling through pool play and holding on for dear life in the knockout rounds.
The pattern is impossible to ignore at this point. Team USA lost to Italy, needed Vinnie Pasquantino to bail them out of pool play, beat Mexico in a tight one, and then nearly coughed up a five-run lead to a Canadian team with minor leaguers in the bullpen. None of those teams are the Dominican Republic. They know it too.
What they do have is Paul Skenes, who is lined up to throw 75 to 80 pitches on Sunday. That changes the equation entirely. One dominant start from the best pitcher on the planet and everything that happened in Houston becomes a footnote. Mark DeRosa got his new lease on life. Now the Americans have to actually use it.
Sunday. 8 PM ET. Miami. FS1. No more margin for error.
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