MIAMI – Geraldo Perdomo threw his hands up and screamed in agony, called out on strikes on a slider low and out of the zone from Team USA closer Mason Miller.
It was a ball, well below the knees of Perdomo, according MLB Gameday’s track of the at-bat’s pitches, and the pitch that was called for strike three that ended the Dominican Republic’s heretofore dominant run at the 2026 World Baseball Classic as they fell 2-1 to Team USA at loanDepot Park on Sunday night.
Sure, it seems picayune to haggle over a called strike at the end of the game, one of however many called by home plate umpire Cory Blaser in the game. Albert Pujols didn’t dwell on it.
“I don’t want to focus on the last pitch. Obviously it didn’t go that way. I’m disappointed about the way that the game ends, but I don’t want to criticize any of that. It just wasn’t meant to be for us,” Pujols said following the game. “I think both teams pitched well, played well. Our bullpen really did an outstanding job. Severino did a great job as well. So I’m not really going to focus the whole game, especially a great game like it was tonight, on that last pitch.”
Blaser, a Major League Baseball umpire with 15 years experience, did get the vast majority of them right.
But with Julio Rodriguez on third as the tying run, being right on the 3-2 pitch would have put Perdomo at first, giving the D.R. runners at the corners with two outs. It would have kept them alive.
But because there was no Automatic Ball/Strike challenge in place in this year’s World Baseball Classic, Perdomo was out, the game ended there, and the Dominican Republic will have to wait until the next WBC to try to avenge this loss in one of the most exciting games ever played in a WBC.
It was a game that had everything – great pitching, great hitting, home runs, an astonishing outfield assist, and one of the best outfield catches you’ll ever see.
Start with the starting pitching matchup, with Team USA’s Paul Skenes, possibly the greatest pitcher of a generation, facing the Domincan Republic’s Luis Severino, an elite starter in Major League Baseball. While neither went deep into the game, they dueled through the opening innings, each allowing a single run, with Skenes allowing a solo homer to Junior Caminero in the second and Severino giving up a solo homer to Gunnar Henderson in the fourth.
Aaron Judge, the biggest name on the United States roster, made a terrific throw from right field in the third inning to catch the D.R.’s Fernando Tatis Jr. trying to take third, throwing a perfect strike to Henderson covering the bag that beat Tatis by 10 feet to end the inning. Had the throw been off the mark, perhaps Tatis scores, giving the D.R. a 2-0 lead. But thanks to Judge’s arm, he didn’t.
The bullpens, too, sparkled under the lights of loanDepot Park, with the only run allowed by either bullpen coming against Dominican reliever Gregory Soto, the first man out of the D.R. bullpen, when he allowed a solo homer to Team USA’s Roman Anthony in the fourth. It turned out to be the deciding run of the game.
An inning later, with Judge, possibly the greatest power hitter of a generation at bat, Julio Rodriguez chased Judge’s fly ball to the center field wall, leapt, and pulled it down to rob Judge of a homer and keep the score 2-1.
And from there, both bullpens maintained the score. Five pitchers out of the D.R. bullpen allowed just one hit and one walk after Soto left the game, striking out eight. The U.S. bullpen, which took over after Skenes threw 4 1/3 innings, allowed just two hits, a walk, and recording six strikeouts over 4 2/3 innings.
Which is to say, this game was a classic, featuring two of the best teams ever assembled – ever – at any level.
And it’s disappointing, regardless of your rooting interest, that not once, but twice, over the last two innings, that a batter was called out on strikes on a pitch low in the zone.
In the eighth, it was Juan Soto, who took an 84 mph slider low from Garrett Whitlock for strike three for the first out of the inning. In the ninth, Perdomo took an 89 mph slider low for strike three to end the game.
Blaser, the plate umpire, was 94% correct on ball/strike calls last season, but these two showed why the ABS challenge system exists, at least in Major League Baseball. It was not adopted for the 2026 World Baseball Classic, likely because with multiple foreign umpires in the officiating pool, those umpires outside the umbrella of MLB haven’t been trained to call the strike zone that the MLB umpires have, and thus allowing ABS challenges might have been problematic when foreign umpires were working behind the plate.
Perhaps, given the two misses by Blaser in the late innings, the ABS challenge system will be in place for the next World Baseball Classic. If the ultimate goal of having replay and ABS challenges is to get the calls right 100% of the time, or if it can’t be 100% of the time, as much as possible, when two of the best teams ever assembled face off, the goal should be to get everything right.
Tonight, that didn’t happen, and Soto, and later Perdomo, were called out, the Dominican Republic lost, and their run at the WBC is over.
Sitting with Skenes on the press conference dais, Team USA closer Mason Miller was asked following the game whether he though his pitch was to Perdomo was low and whether ABS should be in place for the next WBC, Miller didn’t answer. He kept his mouth shut and walked off.
Photo: Geraldo Perdomo reacts after striking out at the end of the ninth inning of a World Baseball Classic semifinal game against the United States, Sunday, March 15, 2026, in Miami. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
