Three Crucial Decisions That Led to Team USA's 2-1 Win Over the Dominican Republic

The United States' 2-1 victory over the Dominican Republic in a pitch-perfect World Baseball Classic semifinal should be enough to quiet any critic who suggests this event has any limitations. Immense talent, passion and competition collided to elevate the sport to its highest level. Team USA had no margin for error and the result could have been flipped had any number of things broken in the Dominican Republic's favor, which again is the sign of a world-class baseball game.

All three runs in the contest came via solo home runs and the climax included a controversial (heck, a bad) strike three call that abruptly ended the Dominican Republic's ninth-inning rally. So those are probably the four biggest moments of the game. Yet there were so many others that flew a bit under the radar that helped the Americans advance to their third consecutive WBC final.

Below are three that went a long way in shaping the final score.

Fifth inning: Mark DeRosa pulls another perfect string

Team USA manager Mark DeRosa has taken all kinds of heat for comments made during pool play in which he suggested that his team had already made the quarterfinals. In reality, the United States needed to be bailed out by Italy to actually secure a spot in the knockout stages. And perhaps a small portion of the blowback was fair. But that noise should stop as he's proven that he's the right man for the job, advancing to his second straight WBC final with a group that feels very much together.

On Sunday night he pulled all the right strings. He benched the struggling Cal Raleigh and Alex Bregman in favor of Will Smith and Gunnar Henderson in the starting lineup and was rewarded when Henderson leveled the score with a home run in the fourth inning. DeRosa also lifted Paul Skenes after just 71 pitches in the fifth inning after the Dominican Republic put runners on first and second with one out. Tyler Rogers came in from the bullpen and used his funky arsenal to immediately induce a double play against Juan Soto, preserving Team USA's 2-1 lead.

TYLER ROGERS GETS THE DOUBLE PLAY TO END THE THREAT! pic.twitter.com/aaZlBx07C1
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) March 16, 2026

Seventh inning: Austin Wells held at third on single

The Dominican Republic had their chances down the stretch and the best came in the seventh inning when Austin Wells stroked a one-out double. Geraldo Perdomo followed with a line-drive single over a leaping Bobby Witt Jr. out into left-center but Wells was unable to score. The catcher had to wait to see if the ball would be caught and then the third base coach opted to play it safe and not force a play at the plate. Team USA's David Bednar would proceed to strike out Fernando Tatis Jr. and Ketel Marte to strand Wells at third. It was an interesting decision by Dominican manager Albert Pujols not to pinch-run for his slow-footed catcher and it proved to be a major turning point in the game.

Eighth inning: Juan Soto also victimized by bad strike three call

The final out of the game was not the only time the Dominican Republic got a bad break at the plate thanks to a questionable call. Juan Soto led off the eighth inning and was rung up on a 1-2 breaking ball that was similarly well below the strike zone. This kicked off a 1-2-3 inning from Team USA reliever Garrett Whitlock against the heart of the order. Soto is widely known as someone with perhaps the best knowledge of the strike zone in all of baseball, so it was particularly brutal to see this one go against him.