{"id":624616,"date":"2026-03-15T05:56:45","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:56:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/624616\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T05:56:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:56:45","slug":"2026-world-baseball-classic-venezuela-stuns-defending-champion-japan-will-face-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/624616\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 World Baseball Classic: Venezuela stuns defending champion Japan, will face Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japan’s World Baseball Classic title defense is over. Saturday night at loanDepot Park in Miami, Venezuela rallied from behind to eliminate Japan (VEN 8, JPN 5<\/a>) and advance to the semifinals. Venezuela is one step away from Tuesday’s Championship Game and Japan will head home following its worst World Baseball Classic finish ever. <\/p>\n

Saturday’s game started with a bang. Two bangs, actually. Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr<\/a>. and Shohei Ohtani<\/a> have combined to win the last three NL MVP awards and they opened Saturday’s game with leadoff home runs. Acu\u00f1a did the honors in the top of the first inning, then Ohtani responded in the bottom half. It’s the first-ever WBC game with two leadoff homers. This, right here, is the good stuff: <\/p>\n

Reigning World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> got hit hard early against Venezuela. Acu\u00f1a tagged him for the leadoff homer and three of the first six batters he faced had extra-base hits. Yamamoto did eventually settle down, though. He retired nine of the final 10 batters he faced, including five via strikeout. Yamamoto finished with two runs allowed in four innings. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

2026 World Baseball Classic bracket, schedule: Semifinals set after Venezuela’s upset of Japan<\/p>\n

\n Matt Snyder <\/p>\n

\"2026<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Venezuela took a 2-1 lead into the third inning before Japan jumped on starter\u00a0Ranger Su\u00e1rez<\/a>. Four of the first five batters they sent to the plate in the third inning reached base, and one batter who didn’t reach laid down a sacrifice bunt. Center fielder Shota Morishita, who replaced the injured Seiya Suzuki<\/a>\u00a0(right knee discomfort) in the second inning, slugged a three-run homer to end Su\u00e1rez’s night. <\/p>\n

Morishita’s home run gave Japan a 5-2 lead and it felt like they were in control of the game, but once the bullpen door swung open, it was advantage Venezuela. Maikel Garcia<\/a> got Venezuela to within 5-4 with a two-run homer in the fifth, then Wilyer Abreu<\/a> clobbered a three-run blast to turn the 5-4 deficit into a 7-5 lead in the sixth inning in an electric moment.<\/p>\n

That’s a brand name Abreu took deep. Hiromi Itoh was the 2025 winner of the Eiji Sawamura Award, which is Japan’s Cy Young. Yamamoto held Venezuela to two runs in four innings. Five Japan relievers were charged with six runs in five innings the rest of the night. The game swung when five of eight Venezuela hitters reached base, spanning the fifth and sixth innings. <\/p>\n

Venezuela’s bullpen, meanwhile, stood tall behind Su\u00e1rez. Six relievers held Japan scoreless across 6 \u2153 innings, and retired 13 straight at one point. Japan’s best chance to get back into the game came in the eighth inning, when Kazuma Okamoto<\/a> and Munetaka Murakami<\/a> strung together back-to-back two-out singles. Andres Machado<\/a> got Shugo Maki to ground out to end the threat. <\/p>\n

Tigers<\/a> minor-league lefty Enmanuel De Jesus<\/a> did the heaviest lifting out of the Venezuela bullpen, soaking up 2 \u2153 scoreless innings in the middle of the game to give the offense a chance to rally. He struck out three, including Ohtani with two runners on base in the fourth inning. De Jesus was awarded the win for his effort. <\/p>\n

Ohtani went 1 for 4 with the leadoff homer and an intentional walk against Venezuela. He struck out twice and popped up behind second base to end the game.<\/p>\n

Venezuela will play Italy in the semifinals Monday night in Miami after Italy continued its Cinderella run Saturday with a\u00a0nail-biter 8-6 win<\/a>\u00a0over Puerto Rico. The winter of Monday’s Italy vs. Venezuela game will advance to the Championship Game and face the winner of\u00a0Sunday’s highly anticipated USA vs. Dominican Republic game<\/a>. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Team USA Baseball vs. Dominican Republic: Odds, prediction, what to know as Paul Skenes faces powerful lineup<\/p>\n

\n Dayn Perry <\/p>\n

\"Team<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

This is Japan’s lowest-ever finish in the WBC. They won the 2006 and 2009 events, finished third in the 2013 and 2017 and won the 2023 WBC. Japan will finish either fifth or sixth in the final standings this year, depending on how Sunday’s USA vs. Dominican Republic game plays out.<\/p>\n

As for Venezuela, this is the first time they’ve advanced to the semifinals since 2009, when they lost to Korea and finished fourth in the tournament. That is Venezuela’s best WBC finish ever. Saturday’s win also clinched a berth in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japan’s World Baseball Classic title defense is over. Saturday night at loanDepot Park in Miami, Venezuela rallied from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[80415,5,24,53,64821,80414,3685,2162,4,73,877,90,921,105,468,77609,71991,606,4820,79433,78939,313],"class_list":{"0":"post-624616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-andres-machado","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-detroit-tigers","12":"tag-enmanuel-de-jesus","13":"tag-japan-venezuela-score","14":"tag-kazuma-okamoto","15":"tag-maikel-garcia","16":"tag-mlb","17":"tag-munetaka-murakami","18":"tag-paul-skenes","19":"tag-ranger-suarez","20":"tag-ronald-acuna-jr","21":"tag-seiya-suzuki","22":"tag-shohei-ohtani","23":"tag-team-usa-baseball","24":"tag-wbc-bracket","25":"tag-wilyer-abreu","26":"tag-world-baseball-classic","27":"tag-world-baseball-classic-bracket","28":"tag-world-baseball-classic-schedule","29":"tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116231654745649387","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624616","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=624616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}