We have our first walk off of the 2026 WBC! Athletics infielder Darell Hernaiz smacked a two-out home run for Puerto Rico to walk off Panama in ten innings, the first walk-off home run in tournament history. USA and Venezuela maintained their perfect starts to the tournament with resounding wins over Great Britain and Israel, respectively. Let’s see how it all shook out.
Pool A: Puerto Rico (2-0) 4, Panama (0-2) 3
The starting pitchers opened this rain-delayed game in San Juan with quite a duel, Ariel Jurado of Panama getting the upper hand
with his five scoreless innings allowing three hits and no walks with five strikeouts over Puerto Rico’s Eduardo Rivera, who also struck out five in his 4.1 innings of one-run ball. Panama broke the seal in the fifth, Jonathan Araúz reaching with one out on a hit-by-pitch and scoring on a Christian Bethancourt double, himself scoring as Luis Castillo followed with a double of his own.
Puerto Rico cut that deficit in half in the sixth on a sac fly by Nolan Aranado with the bases loaded after Bryan Torres and Willi Castro singled and Heliot Ramos was hit by a pitch. Then in the bottom of the ninth, Eddie Rosario walked, Martín Maldonado singled, and Matthew Lugo walked to again to load the bases, allowing Castro to draw the game-tying free pass to send the game to extra innings.
Panama immediately put the pressure on in extras, a sac bunt advancing the automatic runner to third, allowing him to score the go-ahead run on a José Caballero single. However, after stealing second, the Yankees’ speedster and back-to-back AL stolen base leader was thrown out at the plate by Carlos Cortes on a Leonardo Bernal single.
Buoyed by that play to end the top-half, Puerto Rico put the game to bed in the bottom of the tenth. Luis Vázquez singled to lead off and advance the automatic runner to second and again it was Cortes’ turn to come through, his ground ball double play plating the tying run. Up stepped A’s infielder Darell Hernaiz with two outs to yank the first walk-off home run in WBC history just fair inside the left field foul pole.
Pool D: Venezuela (2-0) 11, Israel (0-1) 3
It was a hit parade for Venezuela in Miami, with 14 base knocks against the hapless Israel pitching staff. They set the tone scoring four in the first and never took their foot off the gas pedal from there. Luis Arraez opened the scoring with a double after Ronald Acuña drew a leadoff walk, the former coming around to score on a Salvador Perez single. Eugenio Suárez then crushed a two-run bomb, and already you could sense that this could be a blowout.
From that point forward, this became the Luis Arraez game. Known almost to a fault as a slap singles hitter, the newly-minted Giant brought his slug to the ballpark today. To go along with his first inning RBI double, Arraez lined a solo home run to right in the fifth before smacking a three-run bomb to almost exactly the same spot as part of Venezuela’s five-run sixth, Maikel Garcia also chipping in with a two-run single with the bases loaded earlier in the frame.
Venezuela’s dominant offensive display was matched by that of their starting pitcher, Enmanuel De Jesus setting the tournament high water mark with eight strikeouts in his five innings of one-run ball. RJ Schreck and Harrison Bader hit solo home runs for Israel, but the game was already well in hand for Venezuela at that point.
Pool B: United States (2-0) 9, Great Britain (0-2) 1
It was a slow start for Team USA despite having the best pitcher on the planet on the mound, but the bats broke out once they dug into Great Britain’s bullpen. Tarik Skubal declared prior to the tournament that he would only make one start, and it followed an eerily similar trajectory to that of Logan Webb the night prior. The two-tim defending AL Cy Young winner surrendered a leadoff home run to Nate Easton on the very first pitch of the game, but was nigh-on untouchable from that point forward. He finished his outing having given up two hits and no walks with five strikeouts, setting the tone for the rest of the game as he, Clay Holmes, David Bednar, Griffin Jax, and Brad Keller combined to strike out 17 British hitters.
The United States offense was silent for the first four innings before exploding for five in the fifth, following the pattern from their tournament opener of scoring in bunches. Ernie Clement reached on a one-out throwing error and scored the tying run on a wild pitch after a Pete Crow-Armstrong double advanced him to third. Following up on his two-hit day on Friday, Kyle Schwarber put the USA on top with a booming two-run blast to right, Gunnar Henderson then tacking on a further pair of runs with a two-out single with the bases loaded after Alex Bregman doubled, Bryce Harper was plunked, and Will Smith walked — part of a 4-for-5 performance from the Orioles shortstop in the lineup in place of Bobby Witt Jr.
In their game against Brazil, the US relied on their patience to get the job done, drawing an astonishing 17 walks. With the Great Britain pitcher much less afraid to challenge their daunting lineup in the strike zone, the US had to shift gears to more of a batted ball approach to get the job done. They collected three more insurance runs in the sixth, initially loading the bases with no outs on a Clement leadoff single and walks by Schwarber and PCA. Bregman hit a sac fly and Aaron Judge and Bryce Harper lined RBI singles to put the game to bed, Bregman wrapping up the scoring with his second sac fly an inning later. Brad Keller struck out Jazz Chisholm Jr. to end the contest, the Yankees second baseman going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts to earn the dreaded golden sombrero.
Pool C: Chinese Taipei (2-2) 5, South Korea (1-2) 4
Chinese Taipei have bounced back valiantly from getting manhandled in their first two games of the tournament, scrapping out an extra-innings victory to finish at an admirable 2-2 in pool play. The long ball was the difference maker of this contest, seven of the nine combined runs coming via the home run.
2023 was the last time that Hyun Jin Ryu last pitched in MLB, the 38 year old now plying his trade for the Hanwha Eagles of KBO, but he showed he’s still got it with three innings of one-run ball for South Korea. The only damage against him was the opening run of the contest, a leadoff home run from Yu Chang in the second. South Korea responded in the fifth, a run-scoring double play ground ball from Shay Whitcomb plating the tying run after Hyun Min Ahn drew a leadoff walk and advanced to third on a Bo Gyeong Moon single.
Tsung-Che Cheng reclaimed the lead for Chinese Taipei with a home run to leadoff the second, but it was immediately erased in the bottom half, Do Yeong Kim slugging a two-run blast to grab the lead for South Korea after Dong Won Park drew a leadoff walk. That set Stuart Fairchild up for his second clutch home run in as many nights, following up his grand slam on Friday with the go-ahead two-run homer in the eighth. However, Do Yeong Kim replied with an RBI double in the bottom half to send the game to extras.
Home runs pay have powered most of the scoring, but this game was won in the most small ball way possible, Chinese Taipei plating the automatic runner in the top of the tenth with consecutive sacrifice bunts. It looked like South Korea would follow suit in the bottom half, but Ju Won Kim was thrown out at home on a soft grounder to preserve Chinese Taipei’s 5-4 victory.
After back-to-back days with eight games, today and tomorrow will only feature seven as we wrap up pool play. As expected, the US and Japan are the early frontrunners with two wins through two, although Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Australia are more than holding their own with perfect records as well. Here’s the slate for today:
Australia vs. Japan (Pool C)
Pitching matchup: RHP Connor MacDonald vs. RHP Tomoyuki Sugano
Time: 6:00 a.m. ET
TV: FS1
Venue: Tokyo Dome, Tokyo, Japan
Colombia vs. Cuba (Pool A)
Pitching matchup: RHP Luis Patiño vs. RHP Denny Larrondo
Time: 12:00 p.m. ET
TV: FS2
Venue: Hiram Bithorn Stadium, San Juan, PR
Dominican Republic vs. Netherlands (Pool D)
Pitching matchup: RHP Luis Severino vs. RHP Arij Fransen
Time: 12:00 p.m. ET
TV: Fox
Venue: loanDepot park, Miami, FL
Great Britain vs. Italy (Pool B)
Pitching matchup: TBD vs. RHP Dylan DeLucia
Time: 1:00 p.m. ET
TV: Tubi
Venue: Daikin Park, Houston, TX
Israel vs. Nicaragua (Pool D)
Pitching matchup: RHP Dan Kremer vs. RHP Carlos Rodriguez
Time: 7:00 p.m. ET
TV: Tubi
Venue: loanDepot park, Miami, FL
Panama vs. Canada (Pool A)
Pitching matchup: TBD vs. RHP Jameson Taillon
Time: 7:00 p.m. ET
TV: FS2
Venue: Hiram Bithorn Stadium, San Juan, PR
Brazil vs. Mexico (Pool B)
Pitching matchup: RHP Eric Pardinho vs. RHP Taijuan Walker
Time: 8:00 p.m. ET
TV: FS1
Venue: Daikin Park, Houston, TX
