{"id":616301,"date":"2026-03-10T06:11:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/616301\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T06:11:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:11:23","slug":"these-cubs-are-dominating-the-world-baseball-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/616301\/","title":{"rendered":"These Cubs Are Dominating The World Baseball Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Cubs<\/a> have plenty of representation at this year\u2019s World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n

Eight Cubs players are representing five different nations in this one-of-a-kind tournament. Cubs fans have been able to watch Pete Crow-Armstrong, Alex Bregman, Daniel Palencia, Javier Assad, Jameson Taillon, Seiya Suzuki, and Miguel Amaya.<\/p>\n

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However, the three Cubs players who have stood out so far in the World Baseball Classic are Suzuki, Assad, and Taillon. All three players have dominated in their team\u2019s games over the past few days.<\/p>\n

Suzuki is batting .333 with a 1.571 OPS across Japan\u2019s three games. His best performance in the tournament came against Korea early on Saturday morning. The slugging outfielder launched two home runs en route to a four-RBI game.<\/p>\n

Suzuki has definitely picked up right where he left off last year when he hit three postseason homers. He is already seeing the ball well and isn\u2019t being overly aggressive at the plate. In Monday\u2019s game against Australia, the 31-year-old drew three walks and totaled one RBI.<\/p>\n

His strong World Baseball Classic numbers are a positive sign heading into the 2026 season. It\u2019s also nice to see pitchers like Assad and Taillon get into a bit of a rhythm on the mound. Both pitchers have thrown the ball well in each of their starts.<\/p>\n

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Assad drew the start for Mexico against Great Britain on Friday, throwing 3 \u2154 shutout innings. He allowed just two hits, one walk, and punched out two batters in his first career start in the World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n

The right-hander was excellent in that start and showcased added velocity on the mound. He reached 96.3 mph on his four-seam fastball in the first inning while averaging 94.4 mph on that pitch throughout his 3 \u2154 innings of work.<\/p>\n

That average fastball velocity is up 2.2 mph from his 2025 average fastball velocity (92.2 mph). That\u2019s definitely a notable difference from a season ago. The velocity on his sinker, curveball, sweeper, and changeup are all up as well.<\/p>\n

Someone\u2019s velocity that isn\u2019t up from last season, though, is Taillon. That has been at the forefront of some of his spring struggles<\/a> so far. The right-hander allowed 13 earned runs across six innings pitched in his first three Spring Training starts.<\/p>\n

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Although Taillon\u2019s velocity was still down in his World Baseball Classic start on Sunday, he was solid in his start against Panama. The veteran allowed one run on two hits with two walks and three strikeouts across 3 \u2154 innings.<\/p>\n

That start should give Cubs fans more confidence in Taillon entering the season. He appears to have gotten back on track in that outing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Cubs have plenty of representation at this year\u2019s World Baseball Classic. Eight Cubs players are representing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":616302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[72,5,138,24,4245,161,888,5173,159,728,4,35,105,4820],"class_list":["post-616301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-cubs","tag-alex-bregman","tag-baseball","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-chicagocubs","tag-cubs","tag-daniel-palencia","tag-jameson-taillon","tag-javier-assad","tag-miguel-amaya","tag-mlb","tag-pete-crow-armstrong","tag-seiya-suzuki","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116203401031521942","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}