{"id":624824,"date":"2026-03-15T09:35:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T09:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/624824\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T09:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T09:35:19","slug":"venezuela-rallies-to-beat-shohei-ohtani-and-defending-champ-japan-8-5-advance-to-wbc-semis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/624824\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela rallies to beat Shohei Ohtani and defending champ Japan 8-5, advance to WBC semis"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Wilyer Abreu hit a go-ahead, three-run homer after Maikel Garcia sparked the comeback with a two-run shot, and Venezuela beat Shohei Ohtani and defending champion Japan 8-5 in the World Baseball Classic on Saturday night to advance to the semifinals.<\/p>\n

Venezuela reached its first WBC semis since 2009 and clinched a spot in the six-nation field for the 2028 Olympic baseball tournament, along with the United States and the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n

Venezuela will face unbeaten Italy on Monday, a day after the U.S. plays the Dominicans. <\/p>\n

Abreu gave Venezuela a 7-5 lead when he homered off loser Hiromi Itoh in the sixth, driving a 2-1 four-seam fastball 409 feet to right for his first home run of the tournament. Ezequiel Tovar made it 8-5 in the eighth, leading off with a double then scoring on a throwing error by Atsuki Taneichi on a pickoff attempt.<\/p>\n

Ohtani\u2019s third home run of the tournament wasn\u2019t enough for Japan, which had its 11-game WBC winning streak snapped. <\/p>\n

Ohtani, the 2023 WBC MVP, led off the bottom of the first by lifting a 2-1 slider from Ranger Su\u00e1rez 427 feet to center after Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. homered on the second pitch from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, driving a fastball 401 feet to right-center for his second home run of the WBC. <\/p>\n

Enmanuel De Jesus pitched 2 1\/3 scoreless innings for the win, and Daniel Palencia got the save, ending Japan\u2019s fate by getting Ohtani to pop out for the final out.<\/p>\n

Japan led 5-2 after a four-run third in which Shota Morishita, who replaced the injured Seiya Suzuki at center field, hit a tiebreaking, three-run homer off Su\u00e1rez. The veteran left-hander who picked up a win in a group stage game against the Netherlands pitched 2 2\/3 innings on Saturday, allowing three hits, five runs and two home runs.<\/p>\n

Garcia homered on the eighth pitch against Chihiro Sumida to pull Venezuela within 5-4 in the fifth.<\/p>\n

World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed four hits and two runs while striking out five in four innings.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Wilyer Abreu hit a go-ahead, three-run homer after Maikel Garcia sparked the comeback with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[80016,6982,5,43302,888,64821,869,4290,182,79355,2372,66924,21007,2162,4,1933,105,468,53654,185,78420,8814,606,313],"class_list":["post-624824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-2026-milan-cortina-olympic-games","tag-asia-pacific","tag-baseball","tag-central-america","tag-daniel-palencia","tag-enmanuel-de-jesus","tag-ezequiel-tovar","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-hiromi-itoh","tag-japan","tag-japan-olympic-team","tag-latin-america","tag-maikel-garcia","tag-mlb","tag-ronald-acua-jr","tag-seiya-suzuki","tag-shohei-ohtani","tag-south-america","tag-sports","tag-united-states-olympic-team","tag-venezuela","tag-wilyer-abreu","tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116232515269050916","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624824","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=624824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}