Great baseball games deserve electric, yet decisive endings. Sunday night’s World Baseball Classic semifinal between the United States and Dominican Republic was unfortunately robbed of one of those endings.
With stellar Team USA closer Mason Miller on the mound, Dominican shortstop Geraldo Perdomo worked one of the best at-bats of his life. He fouled off a pair of 3-2 fastballs, forcing Miller to go to the slider on the eighth pitch of the at-bat. It missed the strike zone, probably by a good three inches, but umpire Cory Blaser rung up Perdomo to send the Americans to the championship game.
The Dominicans had every right to be upset about the call, which kept the go-ahead runner from reaching base in front of leadoff man Fernando Tatís Jr. According to Jeff Passan of ESPN, when the Dominicans came out of their clubhouse two hours after gametime, outfielder Juan Soto had a message that summed up how they all felt about the result of the call.
“We showed the world who’s the best team in baseball,” Soto told ESPN. “That’s all I got to say.”
Soto was victimized by a tough strike-three call of his own to lead off the eighth inning, when another low slider from USA setup man Garrett Whitlock got the call from Blaser. Perdomo’s, however, was significantly farther below the zone, and the shortstop lamented how he knew the call better than the man in charge of deciding the game.
“I knew 100% it was a ball,” Perdomo told ESPN. “I knew it.”
Just as Major League Baseball gets set to introduce the Automated Ball-Strike System, the WBC turned out to need that technology in a bad way. Dominican Republic general manager Nelson Cruz, who retired a few seasons before the advent of ABS, couldn’t wait for that technological change to make its way to the international format.
“It’s part of the game,” Cruz told ESPN. “You lost by inches. We’ll have ABS in a few years, so hopefully next time we can challenge plays like that.
Team D.R. qualified for the Olympics in 2028 by virtue of reaching the semifinals, so if there’s any silver lining to their painful end, it’s that their players shouldn’t have to wait until next WBC to get a shot at revenge, assuming major leaguers are allowed to participate as expected.
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