USA 2, Dominican Republic 1: How U.S. Advanced to WBC Championship in Thrilling Nail-biter

What a game.

The United States beat the Dominican Republic 2-1 in the semifinals of the 2026 World Baseball Classic on Sunday night to advance to the finals for the third consecutive tournament. The game, which featured loads of All-Stars, lived up to the hype and produced the kind of contest we were hoping it would.

Junior Caminero opened the scoring in the bottom of the second, as he lifted a hanging sweeper off starting pitcher Paul Skenes and sent it over the left field wall for a 1-0 lead. It didn’t take long for Team USA to answer back.

In the top of the fourth, Gunnar Henderson answered back by blasting a Luis Severino cutter over the right-center field wall to tie the game. Henderson was reinserted into the lineup in place of Alex Bregman on Sunday night, and it turned out to be an outstanding decision. Two batters later, Red Sox outfielder Roman Anthony waited out reliever Gregory Soto and hammered a 3-2 sinker 421 feet to center field for another solo home run.

That 2-1 margin was all the U.S. needed.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Mark DeRosa pulled all the right strings

Team USA manager Mark DeRosa took a lot of heat last week, and for good reason, but on Sunday, he painted a masterpiece. For one night, the guy who was torn to shreds the past few days was Picasso. It was his best performance to date.

DeRosa pulled all the right strings against the Dominican Republic. He yanked underperforming stars Bregman and Cal Raleigh from the lineup in favor of Henderson and Will Smith. They rewarded him as Smith had a hit and Henderson homered.

On the mound, he stuck with Skenes for a bit longer than others might have. The big righty was laboring a bit through his first four innings, but DeRosa left him in before finally pulling him with one out and two on in the fifth. He went with Tyler Rogers, who promptly got Juan Soto to hit into a double play. DeRosa followed with Griffin Jax, David Bedar, Garrett Whitlock and Mason Miller to finish it.

Against one of the best lineups the sport has ever seen, Team USA’s bullpen allowed no runs on two hits and one walk with eight strikeouts over 4 2/3 innings. DeRosa nailed the order and the matchups.

The man deserves his credit.

Dominican Republic’s bats went silent at the worst time

The Dominican offense entered Sunday night’s game as by far the best in the tournament. The team led the 2026 WBC in runs, home runs, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging and OPS, yet against the U.S., the bats went silent.

The Dominicans managed just one run, on Caminero’s second-inning home run, despite eight hits. As a team, they finished 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position and couldn’t punch in runs when they needed to. Austin Wells, Ketel Marte, and Geraldo Perdomo all failed to come through with runners in scoring position and two outs. Those failures in clutch situations will haunt the D.R. for the next few years.

The team entered the game as an offensive juggernaut, averaging more than 10 runs per game. On Sunday night, the U.S. shut its potent lineup down.

The game lived up to the hype

For weeks, these looked like the two best rosters in the tournament. They have been on a collision course either for the final or the semifinals since it started. We got the matchup we were all hoping for and it was as good as we could have hoped.

Sure, some more fireworks would have been fun, but this was a tense playoff atmosphere from the opening pitch to the last. Every swing felt important and every moment was heightened because of it. Even the awful call to end it was overshadowed by how competitive the game was.

Sunday night’s contest is the reason the World Baseball Classic exists. We can only hope the final lives up to what we just witnessed.

Team USA vs. Dominican Republic live blog: Here’s what happened in World Baseball Classic semifinal

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