{"id":627691,"date":"2026-03-17T07:50:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/627691\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T07:50:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:50:43","slug":"maikel-garcia-admits-big-leagues-is-not-like-this-after-helping-venezuela-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/627691\/","title":{"rendered":"Maikel Garcia Admits ‘Big Leagues is Not Like This’ After Helping Venezuela Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maikel Garcia<\/a> has won a playoff series in his young career with the Kansas City Royals<\/a>, but the star infielder might have had the biggest moment of his baseball life in Venezuela’s<\/a> 4-2 win over Italy<\/a> in the semifinal of the World Baseball Classic<\/a>. Garcia seems to feel that way, too.<\/p>\n

Following Monday’s win, Garcia shared how special the win was for him during his postgame interview with the FS1 crew.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Big leagues is not like this,” Garcia said. “This is amazing. This is different. I think this is going to help me to play better in the big leagues.”<\/p>\n

In a follow-up, Derek Jeter<\/a> asked Garcia if the environment in Kansas City was anything like what he experienced in Miami’s loanDepot on Monday during his time in Kansas City.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Not even close,” Garcia replied.<\/p>\n

Garcia played a key role in electrifying the Venezuelan crowd on Monday. He went 2 for 4 at the plate, with one of those hits knocking in what would be the game-winning run. Garcia hit a single to left off Italy pitcher Michael Lorenzen<\/a> in the seventh inning that gave Venezuela a 3-2 lead. That hit was sandwiched between a pair of other base knocks that helped Venezuela rally from a 2-1 deficit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maikel Garcia joins Big Papi, A-Rod and Derek Jeter after Venezuela’s win over Italy in WBC Semifinal \"Maikel<\/a> <\/p>\n

Two of the game’s top hitters, Ronald Acuna Jr.<\/a> and Luis Arraez<\/a>, were the other two players from Venezuela who contributed to the seventh-inning comeback. But Garcia credited someone who wasn’t in Venezuela’s lineup for helping lift the ballclub toward an appearance in the World Baseball Classic final against Team USA: Royals catcher Salvador Perez<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Before we got here, he told me about [how] it’s different,” Garcia said of Perez. “We played before in winter ball. This is different than winter ball. It’s loud. There’s a lot of people from different countries. We have to make the plays and play good. He’s a great captain. He’s helped me a lot in the big leagues and he did a great job last night. Thank God we have him here.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Venezuela will take on the USA in the World Baseball Classic final at 8 p.m. ET on FOX, the FOX Sports app and FOX One.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maikel Garcia has won a playoff series in his young career with the Kansas City Royals, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627692,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,936,2123,55,2596,2595,85,2162,19,4,921,252,373,8814,4820],"class_list":{"0":"post-627691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-kansas","10":"tag-kansas-city","11":"tag-kansas-city-royals","12":"tag-kansascity","13":"tag-kansascityroyals","14":"tag-luis-arraez","15":"tag-maikel-garcia","16":"tag-major-league-baseball","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-ronald-acuna-jr","19":"tag-royals","20":"tag-salvador-perez","21":"tag-venezuela","22":"tag-world-baseball-classic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116243427660136822","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627691","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=627691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}