World Baseball Classic: Venezuela reaches its first final. USA plays its third straight

Tonight, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, Venezuela will play its first final in the history of the World Baseball Classic. Twenty years of tournament. Six editions. And until now, not one in which the Venezuelan national team had survived to the last night.

The stage is loanDepot Park in Miami, with a capacity of 37,442 spectators and a percentage of Venezuelan fans in the stands that, according to the organizers themselves, turns the stadium into something closer to Caracas than South Florida. Across the field: the United States, which arrives at its third consecutive tournament final and seeks its second title in its history after the 2017 championship.

Venezuela's tournament did not start well. They fell to the Dominican Republic in the group stage and finished the first round with a 3-1 record. What came next defies any narrative about favorites.

In the quarterfinals, Venezuela dispatched Japan, the defending champion, Shohei Ohtani's team, with a score of 8-5. It was the most talked-about result of the tournament until that moment. Then, on Monday, they repeated the script against Italy: down 0-2 at the end of the second inning, with starter Keider Montero out of the game in the first inning, and a bullpen that threw 7.2 scoreless innings to sustain a comeback completed in the seventh. An RBI single by Ronald Acuña Jr. tied the game; a go-ahead single by Maikel García gave the decisive lead. Final score: 4-2.

Manager Omar López summed it up without modesty on Monday night: "Eduardo Rodríguez, the number one, is going to start for us tomorrow."

The starting pitcher matchup in this final says a lot about the state of each team.

Nolan McLean, 24, is considered by Baseball America and MLB Pipeline to be the best pitching prospect in baseball right now. The New York Mets right-hander has just eight starts of Major League experience. Tonight will be the most important game of his life. His manager, Mark DeRosa, described him with the confidence that only comes when you have bet everything: "He's built for this. His mentality, his arsenal, his drive."

On the other side, Eduardo Rodríguez is 32 years old, with a decade in the Major Leagues and a 2018 World Series ring. His recent numbers are not those of his best seasons: ERA above 5.00 with Arizona and a start in this tournament against the Dominican Republic that lasted just 2.2 innings with three runs allowed. But January baseball is not March baseball with a packed stadium and the entire country watching.

The home-field advantage, decided by coin flip because both teams came in with identical 5-1 records, went to the United States.

Luis Arráez leads the tournament in RBIs with 10, Maikel García leads the hit count, and Acuña Jr. has been the face of a run that has unified Venezuelan fans in Miami and beyond.

But Venezuela's strongest argument is not the offense. After the Italy game, six Venezuelan relievers combined for 7.2 scoreless innings allowing just three hits. It is the second consecutive game in which the bullpen rescues a disastrous opener and wins the game on its own. If Rodríguez lasts four or five competitive innings tonight, the team has arms to close.

The problem is that on the other side there is an offense that, while quiet on paper, has the potential to explode at any moment. Aaron Judge arrives at the final with an OPS of .979 and two home runs in the tournament; Bobby Witt Jr. has been the most complete player on the team in all phases of the game except for hitting a home run, which has not yet come.

There is a scar in the Venezuelan collective memory that this final cannot ignore.

In the 2023 quarterfinals, Venezuela was controlling the game and the series until the eighth inning. Trea Turner hit a grand slam. The score went to 9-7. The United States advanced. Venezuela went home.

The generation playing tonight knows about that game. Some of the same players were in that dugout. It is not spoken about at press conferences — there is no more Venezuelan way to not talk about something than to name it briefly and change the subject — but it is there, floating over every press conference, every question about who the favorite is.

The World Baseball Classic head-to-head record between the two teams shows an advantage for the United States at three wins to two. The last time they met in the tournament was precisely in that 2023 quarterfinal.

The United States arrives as the favorite with a -275 money line, with Venezuela priced at +215 as the underdog on paper. Reasonable numbers given the rosters. Numbers that Venezuela already ignored twice in this tournament.

The American team scored six, five, five, and two runs in their last four games, respectively. The best defense in the tournament and the best rotation on paper are not enough if the bats keep going quiet. Baseball has that irritating particularity of not caring too much about what should happen.

Venezuela is going after something that no South American team has ever accomplished in this tournament. With a 32-year-old veteran on the mound who needs his best night. With a bullpen that has already shown it can win entire games on its own. With Acuña Jr., who by his own words put this Classic ahead of his Major League team this season.

The game starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. The answer, in nine innings.

The 2026 World Baseball Classic final airs on FOX Sports over the air in the United States, FOX Deportes for Spanish-speaking audiences, and ESPN / Disney+ for Latin America.