The Final We Almost Got
Let's be honest with each other for a second. The WBC final everyone wanted was Japan vs. Team USA. A rematch. Ohtani against the Americans, this time without a mound to close it out on. It was supposed to be the sequel to 2023, the most-watched international baseball game in recent memory. It's not happening. And the reason it's not happening is one of the most stunning things to occur in international baseball since, well, since Japan beat Team USA in 2023. Venezuela beat Japan 8-5. In the quarterfinals. Knocked the three-time champions out earlier than they have ever been eliminated in the twenty-year history of the World Baseball Classic. Japan's manager Hirokazu Ibata reportedly walked to the team hotel the morning after and told reporters he intends to step down. "Results are everything," he said [1]. They are. And tonight in Miami, the results that matter come from the last two teams standing.
How Venezuela Killed the Dynasty
The Japan-Venezuela quarterfinal was exactly as wild as the sport is capable of producing. Ronald Acuña Jr. led off the game and hit the second pitch from Yoshinobu Yamamoto — the 2025 World Series MVP — over the right-center wall at loanDepot Park. He circled the bases pumping his fists, finishing with the "La Bestia" celebration. The Venezuelan fans went insane [1]. Then Shohei Ohtani stepped in for Japan and absolutely launched one. 114 mph off the bat, a rocket to right-center, bat flip included. The stadium gasped. Japan 1, Venezuela 1, and we were two batters in. Here's what made that first inning legitimately historic: both Acuña and Ohtani are MLB MVP winners. There has never been a game in MLB history where two MVP Award winners hit leadoff home runs in the same game [1]. The WBC gave us something baseball's regular season literally never had. That alone was worth the price of admission. But the game had more to say. Japan rallied to take a 5-2 lead by the fourth inning, and things looked dire for Venezuela. Then Wilyer Abreu stepped up in the sixth and crushed a three-run homer off Hiromi Itoh — the reigning Sawamura Award winner, Japan's equivalent of the Cy Young — to give Venezuela a 6-5 lead they never gave back [2]. The Venezuelan bullpen did the rest. Six pitchers combined for 6 1/3 innings of shutout baseball after the third inning. Japan, which entered the tournament as heavy favorites to three-peat, didn't score after the fourth inning of a quarterfinal game. Their dynasty is dead. Venezuela is in the final.



