I don’t want to sound like I have sour grapes over the entire thing, especially when talking about an event that was as entertaining as this World Baseball Classic, but from the United States standpoint, I can’t help but feel like this was something of a fruitless exercise. Three years ago, we sat here after the United States lost a 3-2 game to Japan in the WBC finals. We heard for three years about how the US was going to load up on their roster and try to win this thing in 2026. Now the 2026 World Baseball Classic is complete, and the US has just been defeated by a final score of 3 to 2, this time losing to Venezuela in the process.
For a hot minute there, it felt like this was setting up to be one of the all-time dud American performances, right up there with the 2004 Olympic basketball team coming away from Athens with nothing but a bronze medal. The United States had been completely shut down, and I’ll admit that my scorn is heightened by the fact that the guy who did a majority of the heavy lifting tonight was former Tiger, Eduardo Rodriguez. But even when he was taken out of the game, it didn’t really matter. But this is where you give credit to this pitching staff. They held this thing together with duct tape for a long time, and you just felt like someone was due to have a moment. That moment came from Bryce Harper, and it felt like the United States was in line to steal one. I think this is where team chemistry is really important. These Venezuelan players know each other. I’m sure some of them have played together and been teammates before. A lesser team might’ve cracked under that pressure, but Venezuela didn’t. They were clearly the better team tonight and clearly the better team in this tournament.
The shocking thing to come out of this World Baseball Classic is how inconsistent the American offense was in high-leverage situations. That’s difficult to explain. This is typically an offensive tournament, and the fact that this lineup, full of all-stars and some future Hall of Famers, failed to get important hits in high-leverage situations is pretty shocking. People are going to point to Aaron Judge, but the fact is, there are a lot of experienced players who didn’t show up in big-time moments. They’ll have a chance to redeem themselves in three years.