World Baseball Classic: Dominican Republic lineup finally meets its match as Team USA pitches its way to the championship

MIAMI — Junior Caminero sat in the third-base dugout, glued to his seat while his teammates retreated inside, sinking into an unfamiliar feeling. To that point, his rollicking and resplendent Dominican Republic team had spent the World Baseball Classic outclassing and overwhelming its opponents, emphatically enjoying every second along the way. But this time, Caminero was left to watch someone else celebrate.

Moments earlier, the Dominicans fell 2-1 to Team USA in the WBC semifinals. It was a game that will be talked about for years to come, with the unprecedented amount of talent on display culminating in what felt like an All-Star Game with postseason tension. In the end, D.R. landed on the wrong side of the nail-biter, marking an abrupt end to a tournament run that at times seemed impossible to derail — at least until a foe with equal star power stood in its path. 

“Just unbelievable,” USA manager Mark DeRosa said postgame. “That was high-level baseball at its finest.”

About two-and-a-half hours before he lingered forlorn in the dugout as the USA players traded high-fives in the infield, Caminero delivered the Dominicans yet another jolt of baseballing electricity. Facing super-ace Paul Skenes, who swiftly recorded five outs on 14 pitches to begin the game, Caminero uncorked his thunderous, right-handed swing and connected with a high-and-away sweeper on a 1-2 count, sending the ball over the left-field wall for a solo shot to open the scoring. It was his third homer of the tournament and the 15th by a Dominican batter in six games, a record for homers by a team in a single Classic. 

As Caminero chucked his bat back toward the dugout and hopped his way to home plate to the delight of the Dominican-heavy crowd at loanDepot Park, another memorable night of prolific production at the plate and exuberant trips around the bases seemed to be in store for Team D.R. Instead, that turned out to be the last time a Dominican batter scored in this year’s tournament, as Skenes and a quintet of top-tier American relievers stymied the star-studded lineup from that point on.

With that outstanding collective effort on the mound, solo homers from Gunnar Henderson and Roman Anthony and a pair of questionable strike-three calls falling in its favor, Team USA secured the one-run victory and punched its ticket to the championship, where it will face the winner of Monday’s semifinal between Italy and Venezuela.

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After Caminero put his team on the board in the second inning Sunday, Team D.R. spent the remaining frames failing to cash in on run-scoring chances. The game was always within reach — the D.R. pitching staff delivered a remarkable effort of its own to tame a loaded American lineup that has yet to really break through against a quality opponent — but that next big hit never came. Fernando Tatis Jr. was thrown out at third base to end the third inning, rather than Juan Soto coming to bat with runners on first and second. Austin Wells flied out with the bases loaded to end the fourth. Soto grounded into a double play against submariner Tyler Rogers to end the fifth. It took Griffin Jax just seven pitches to retire Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Manny Machado and Caminero in the sixth. David Bednar wiggled out of a second-and-third, one-out situation in the seventh, striking out Tatis and Ketel Marte to inch USA closer to victory. 

In the middle innings, Dominican scoring opportunities were undeniably squandered. Later on, however, a difficult night for the D.R. lineup became more challenging for reasons beyond its control. Leading off the eighth, the ever-dangerous Soto was rung up on a slider below the zone by home plate umpire Cory Blaser. And in the ninth, with two outs and the tying run on third, another slider — this time from Mason Miller, and this time even farther below the zone — was called strike three on Geraldo Perdomo rather than ball four, eliminating the chance of a D.R. rally with Tatis the next man up. That call also ended the contest with a groan, lessening the chance that this last-out highlight will sustain as one worth replaying for years to come.

Bad calls in big moments are far from a novelty in this game’s history, but the circumstances of this pair of blunders from Blaser were particularly cruel. That’s because these WBC games will be the last of consequence played without the ABS challenge system, which is being introduced in MLB this year to provide teams with a means of recourse when they disagree with ball-strike calls.

But the system is not in place for this tournament, so Perdomo had no option to protest the last pitch he saw. Adding to the evolving dynamic of strike-zone judgment are the specific hitters who were hurt by these calls: Soto and Perdomo had the lowest and seventh-lowest chase rates among all qualified hitters last season. On Sunday, their advanced plate discipline went unrewarded in unfair fashion at the worst possible time. 

Those two missed calls are sure to be lamented in the Dominican Republic for years to come. But the umpiring misfires are a fraction of what unfolded in Sunday’s semifinal, and they shouldn’t overshadow what was a spectacular showing from Team USA on the mound. A Dominican offense that exploded for 51 runs across its first five games was held to one — one! — tally by USA’s six pitchers. Skenes wasn’t nearly at his best, yielding a healthy amount of hard contact and benefitting from some terrific defense behind him, but he still set the tone for what came after: a comprehensive demonstration of Team USA’s mighty mound talent, from ace-level starters to funky relievers to unflappable high-leverage hurlers to fireballing closers. 

“Yeah, the D.R. is the toughest lineup I've ever faced, for sure,” Skenes said afterward. “I think they would probably say the same thing about facing us.”

"You go into a game with a lineup of guys that are staples in the middle of every order around the league, some of the best players in our game,” Miller said. “You got to be at your best because you know that they are."

Indeed, once the D.R. got rolling in pool play, it became clear that it would take an extraordinary collection of arms to slow this offense down. But that’s exactly what Team USA brought to the table, delivering on the pre-tournament hype that USA Baseball had finally assembled a pitching staff that resembled the best it had to offer — in contrast to the American arms who appeared in the WBC three years ago.

The entire purpose of the USA putting together a pitching staff of this caliber was to be well-equipped when encountering a lineup as powerful as the Dominican Republic’s. And when that marquee matchup finally arrived, the pitching plan headlined by Skenes and punctuated by Miller recorded the necessary outs to stifle such an astonishing array of hitters, sending the Americans to the championship and the Dominicans back to spring training.

For the starter and closer, perhaps the best examples of USA Baseball recruiting its top arms to participate in this tournament, games such as Sunday’s are exactly what they signed up for. 

“I don’t think it was a hard decision,” Miller said of joining Team USA. “This is something that is an extremely high honor for a lot of players that would love to be in our position, love to have this opportunity. So it's not something that I took for granted when I was asked to be a part of it. It was an immediate yes.”

“It was an easy decision for me,” Skenes said. “There are sacrifices that you have to make. You have to do a little more in the offseason to do things a little bit differently. But easy decision.

“And I'm definitely glad I made that decision.”