MIAMI — Mere seconds after the ball left his bat in the bottom of the sixth inning, Junior Caminero was booking it around the bases, euphoria smothering all sense of reason. You see, he’d just tattooed a two-run homer to straightaway center field to give the Dominican Republic the lead in its opening game of the World Baseball Classic, and even though nobody could possibly get him out, the 22-year-old slugger couldn’t contain himself.
He sprinted so fast toward second base that his helmet flew off. He skipped to third, where he seemed to finally realize that he didn’t have to run. He paused and gestured toward the Dominican fans behind the dugout, then pranced home.
It was one of the most electric home run celebrations in the history of the World Baseball Classic, a moment of catharsis after five and a half bewildering innings. The blast snapped the Dominican squad out of its temporary daze, as one of the most lethal lineups ever assembled pummeled Nicaragua’s pitchers for the remainder of the game. The final score of 12-3 didn’t reflect the chaos of what could have been. Up until that point, the Dominicans were getting outplayed by a vastly inferior Nicaragua team, whose leadoff batter, Chase Dawson, is from Northern Indiana and has never played affiliated baseball; it was only last year that he established residency in the country while playing winter ball there.
“There are no small enemies here,” said center fielder Julio Rodríguez. “We went out to fight. The first innings were tough. But thank God, it was a battle that we were able to win.”
The Dominicans know as well as anyone that even the most hyped-up clubs can crumble in early March. Their failure to make it out of pool play in the last WBC punctured the pride of this baseball-crazed country. “It was a bitter experience as a fan in the previous edition of the WBC,” said manager Albert Pujols on Thursday. “But that’s history. Now we are focused on this team.” Yet no matter how much the team dismissed the 2023 tournament as the past, its specter hung from the rafters of loanDepot park in the lead-up to Friday night’s game. “The Dominican fans, we know them, how they deal with the game,” said right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. “We want to give them what they deserve.”
Many of those fans, however, were already looking ahead. They wanted Venezuela, one of the two teams to beat the D.R. in 2023. (The other, Puerto Rico, is in Pool A this time around.) The rivalry between the two countries dominated the conversation at Thursday’s media day, where reporters kept asking each team about the other, even though their matchup isn’t scheduled until the final night of the first round. The tickets for that game are tracking to be the most expensive ever for a WBC pool play game.
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The players are also fueling the feud. Venezuela’s Ronald Acuña Jr. said he and the Dominican Republic’s Juan Soto made a bet that whichever one loses has to wear the uniform of the other’s country. On Thursday afternoon, as the Dominicans were finishing up their team photos in the outfield, the Venezuelans were making their way out for their own photo day. The players for both sides started whooping and yelling and converging in shallow center field, as if an Anchorman rumble was about ensue. But before Brick could throw a trident, they all started hugging.
Indeed, both teams understand that they are supposed to advance from Pool D, which along with Nicaragua, also includes the Netherlands and Israel. But despite the Dominican Republic’s slow start on Friday night and Venezuela’s sometimes-sloppy play in its 6-2 win over the Netherlands earlier in the afternoon, both teams mostly lived up to those lofty expectations.
Venezuela pulled ahead for good in the second inning when center fielder Javier Sanoja, who was playing in place of the injured Jackson Chourio, turned on a four-seamer and yanked it over the left field wall for a solo home run. The team expanded that lead with a four-run fifth that might’ve been a lot worse for the Netherlands if not for designated hitter Salvador Perez’s rally-killing double play.
After Andrés Giménez was hit by a pitch and Acuña walked to begin the fifth, Maikel Garcia for some reason decided to sacrifice bunt. It was fielded by first baseman Sharlon Schoop, who turned to throw to first only to realize Ozzie Albies wasn’t cover the bag. Luis Arraez then drew a bases loaded walk before Willson Contreras singled in two more runs. Following the Perez double play, Arraez scored on a Wilyer Abreu single.
This is a pesky lineup with a wide range of hitting styles. The Dominicans have more thump, but the Venezuelans also have a deep group of hitters. It’s also true that they probably didn’t have their best nine in the lineup. Beyond the absence of Chourio, who should be ready to play either Saturday night against Israel or Monday against Nicaragua, All-Stars Gleyber Torres and Eugenio Suárez were also on the bench. Both are probably better hitters at this point than Perez, the team’s captain. Suárez is the better option at DH, or manager Omar López could improve both the offense and defense by starting Torres at second and putting either Suárez or Arraez at DH. Arraez, a three-time batting champion, has declined over the last two seasons, but the Venezuelan team still values what he brings to the lineup.
“Arraez is a great player,” Contreras said after Friday’s game. “He was born, I would say, in the wrong time, but it’s true. Luis Arraez is a great hitter. I just wanted to say that, to vent it out.”
Still, Arraez’s glove could prove to be a liability at second base, and we saw that immediately on Friday afternoon. The first batter of the game grounded to the right side. A better second baseman with more range would’ve had a play on it, but even Contreras at first seemed to know Arraez couldn’t get there, so he ventured way too far off the bag and backhanded it. He threw wide to pitcher Ranger Suarez covering, allowing Ray-Patrick Didder to reach on the infield single. The second baseman also didn’t have good enough footwork or a strong enough arm to turn a double play on a groundball to third later in the inning.
Then, in the second, Netherlands DH Hendrik Clementina hit a broken-bat grounder to a similar location as Didder’s in the first. This time, Contreras retreated to the base, but Arraez still couldn’t get to the ball; it went into right field for a single, and Clementina scored the tying run two batters later on a Druw Jones hustle double. Ultimately, these mistakes didn’t matter; the game felt over by the start of the sixth inning, when Venezuela led by five. But against a better team, not making those plays could have doomed Venezuela.
Likewise, the Dominican Republic’s early struggles would’ve hindered the club against a stronger opponent than Nicaragua. For the first two innings of the nightcap, the slappiest team in the Western Hemisphere flipped and dipped and blooped and scooped balls all over the field, pestering Dominican ace Cristopher Sánchez to an early exit. But for all the traffic on the bases, Nicaragua scored only three runs.
The first one came in the first inning, when the first four batters reached on a wild strike three, two singles, and a walk before Sánchez buckled down, finding his slider-changeup combo and striking out the next three batters to get out of trouble.
That initial lead was short lived, as Tatis lined a leadoff single to left and Ketel Marte hooked a double down into the right field corner to score him. Marte advanced to third on a grounder to second and scored on a grounder to short to put the Dominicans ahead, 2-1.
Then, again, Nicaragua attacked Sánchez, this time with the bottom of the order. Cristhian Sandoval lined a single to left before Freddy Zamora, the nine-hole hitter, doubled him home to tie the game. That brought up Dawson, the Indiana Kid, who slapped a single through the left side. Zamora took a hard turn around the third base bag and held up, but Soto was rushing and muffed the ball, allowing Zamora to score and Nicaragua to retake the lead. After an out and another Nicaragua single, Pujols went to his bullpen. From that point through the eighth inning, Nicaragua managed just two baserunners.
Meanwhile, the Dominican batters were having a tough time staying back on Ronald Medrano’s pitches. Some of the right-hander’s offerings looked like shuttlecocks as he turned the hulking hitters into drunken dads at a barbecue.
He struck out both Rodríguez and Austin Wells to begin the second before Geraldo Perdomo worked an eight-pitch walk, then stole second easily with Tatis up. Catcher Melvin Novoa’s throw was short and nowhere near the bag; it rolled into center field, and Perdomo to advance to third. After Tatis walked, Marte quickly got ahead in the count, 2-0. Medrano got back in it with back-to-back called strikes. He missed low with a sinker to fall behind, 3-2. Marte then fouled off consecutive sinkers, one on the black inside, the other on the black away. And, to cap off his masterclass in savvy and guile, he fooled Marte with an 83-mph changeup that drifted a little lower and a little farther outside and away from the flailing lumber to escape the jam.
Still, it was only a matter of time before the Dominicans would figure out Medrano. That came with two outs in the bottom of the third. Rodríguez stepped in with runners on first and second and grounded a single back through the box to tie the game, 3-3. Nicaragua manager Dusty Baker called on the lefty Danilo Bermudez to face the lefty Wells. After three foul balls, Rodríguez took off on first move. Bermudez was on to him and threw over to first, where Emanuel Trujillo received the pickoff, cleared the baseline to get a better throwing lane, and fired to shortstop Zamora, who applied the tag to end the inning.
The two teams traded zeros for the next two and a half innings, before a Manny Machado double set the stage for Caminero’s home run, a blistering 111.6-mph drive that traveled 414 feet. Even then, though, the game wasn’t out of reach until the bottom of the eighth. Rodríguez began the scoring with a solo shot and ended it with an RBI single. The highlight of the six-run frame was an absurd three-run tank by pinch-hitter Oneil Cruz; it came off the bat at 116.8 mph and landed 450 feet away in the upper deck in right field.
Before the offensive barrage broke the game open, Machado dazzled defensively on back-to-back plays in the top of the eighth, backhanding choppers down the third base line and firing no-look seeds across his body while running into foul territory to get the out at first. He also made a nifty play for the final out of the frame, but it seemed rather routine considering the two gems that came before it.
For all the talk of the lethal lineup, the Dominican Republic featured four of the best fielders at their positions on the field Friday night. Of course, there are concerns about the pitching staff, but with Machado at third, Perdomo at short, Rodríguez in center and Tatis in right, plus Marte at second and Wells behind the plate, the Dominicans can mask some of the meh on the mound.
We won’t know for sure, though, until they face better competition. A more potent offense would’ve built a bigger lead as the Dominican pitchers struggled early, and a better bullpen would’ve made it more difficult for the hitters to mount a comeback. Similarly, a deeper lineup would’ve pounced on Venezuela’s defensive miscues and at least threatened to score more runs against its relievers. However, neither the Venezuelans nor the Dominicans will likely have to worry about their flaws for another few days. Their first real challenge probably won’t come until they face each other.