MIAMI (AP) — Aaron Judge walked slowly back and forth in the United States' dugout on Tuesday night while Venezuelan players shed tears and fell to their knees to celebrate the country's first World Baseball Classic title.
Other players from the Americans' $320 million roster stood frozen for several minutes before finally leaving the field.
Team USA brought its most loaded roster ever to baseball's premier international event, but the Americans lost
their second straight WBC final after winning the championship in 2017.
The U.S. produced just three hits on Tuesday and four runs over the final two games of the WBC — well short of offensive expectations for a roster of players who combined for 382 home runs and 1,111 RBIs last MLB season.
Three years after losing to Shohei Ohtani and Japan in 2023, the Americans were again disappointed, this time by an energetic Venezuelan team led by All-Stars Ronald Acuña Jr., Maikel Garcia and Luis Arraez.
Left-hander Eduardo Rodríguez mowed down the Americans' fearsome lineup with measured ease on Tuesday, leaving the colorful celebration to his teammates who met him with claps as he stoically exited the mound in the fifth.
Rodríguez fanned Judge — the U.S. captain went 0 for 4 — twice among four strikeouts and held the Americans to just one hit over 5 1/3 innings.
The Venezuelan bullpen gave up just two hits from there, including Bryce Harper's tying, two-run homer over the center-field fence against Andrés Machado in the eighth.
Arraez walked against Garrett Whitlock starting the ninth and pinch-runner Javier Sanoja stole second just ahead of catcher Will Smith’s throw, then came home on Eugenio Suárez double. Suárez spread his arms wide and pointed to the sky at second base while teammates streamed from the dugout to greet Sanoja at the plate.
It signaled another brutal finish could be coming for the U.S., which lost the 2023 WBC title game when Ohtani struck out Mike Trout to win it for Japan.
The American roster was made up of players who have combined for more than 2,300 home runs and 419 saves, and nine of them have played in a World Series.
But they never quite displayed the full extent of their offensive firepower. They hit .250 over seven games with 44 runs, 10 homers and 40 RBIs.
After the U.S. beat the Dominican Republic 2-1 in the semifinals, manager Mark DeRosa said he was still waiting for his team to explode offensively.
That will have to wait another three years.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
