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🤌🤌The Italians bailed out Team USA.🤌🤌

Plus: Canada advanced for the first time ever. The Dominican Republic barely averted a crisis. The 2026 World Baseball Classic bracket is set, and the Oakland A’s seem to be solving a perpetual problem. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup!

WBC Bracket: Canada, Italy, USA in; Cuba, Mexico out

Italy 9, Mexico 1: By the middle of the fifth inning in last night’s game between Team Italy and Team Mexico, most of the intrigue was over — not (yet) for the teams playing, but for the Americans, who would advance with an Italy win or a Mexico win in which they scored five or more runs.

When Jakob Marsee singled home Italy’s fourth and fifth runs, that pretty well sealed* survival for Team USA.

More on the Americans in Ken’s section, but first: How about those Italians?

Before play began, the easy guess was that Team USA would win Pool B, with Mexico also advancing. Italy had some good players, but who was its biggest star? Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino?

Well, yes. Pasquantino — Italy’s captain — was 0-for-the-tournament before breaking out in a huge way last night. He’s now the first and only player in WBC history to hit three home runs in one game. But it hasn’t been a one-man show. The Italians have scored, kept scoring and continued to score. They not only advance, but emerge as the undefeated winner of Pool B. They’ll play Puerto Rico on Saturday (3 p.m. ET, FS1).

We’ll get into the rest of last night’s action in just a moment, but first: Here’s Ken with more on Team USA.

*There was a moving-target, extra-innings scenario that could have sunk the USA, but I’ve spent MORE than enough time on that in the last 36 hours, so just know: It existed in theory, and thankfully we didn’t have to parse through it in real life.

Ken’s Notebook: ‘You’re welcome, USA’

From my latest column:

HOUSTON — Nothing to see here! Team USA’s ticket is indeed punched to the quarterfinals of the WBC. Manager Mark DeRosa just got a little ahead of himself, that’s all.

That would be the charitable view, heartily endorsed by DeRosa’s employers at Major League Baseball. But Team USA, the runner-up in Pool B, literally can move on now. The firestorm DeRosa created by prematurely saying his team advanced will subside Friday, the moment the first pitch is thrown in the quarterfinal against Canada, the Pool A winner.

For its narrow escape, Team USA can thank the Italian-Americans who helped Italy eliminate Mexico — most notably Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola, who threw five scoreless innings, and Pasquantino, who hit three homers.

“You’re welcome, USA,” Pasquantino said in a postgame interview. “We were thinking of you guys over at your hotel. We were thinking of you guys, so I’m glad you could join us in the party.”

Perhaps Team USA should donate whatever prize money it receives to the Italian Baseball Federation. Outfit the entire Italian team in Armani. Donate an Italian-American major leaguer currently in spring training for the rest of the WBC.

Ah, but enough of this espresso rush.

The focus now will turn to another of DeRosa’s comments from earlier in the tournament, when he was asked about which pitcher Mexico manager Benji Gil might start against Team USA: “Honestly, I think we have the best 30 players in the world in that clubhouse and they’re coming together as a team. I don’t really think it’s going to matter who he starts. We’re going to put a lineup out there and get after it.”

Gil took exception, but Team USA rode a five-run third inning in that game to defeat Mexico 5-3. The supposed 30 best players in the world, though, couldn’t beat Italy, which started journeyman right-hander Michael Lorenzen and featured a lineup with zero All-Star appearances to Team USA’s 24, with Bryce Harper and Alex Bregman combining for 11 more on the U.S. bench.

A victory over Canada in the quarterfinal would push Team USA to the semifinals in Miami. At some point, the 30 best players in the world might need to overcome similarly loaded teams from the Dominican Republic and/or three-time WBC champion Japan. Its offense, in particular, will need to show more than brief flashes of dominance.

More Bracket: Dominicans beat Venezuela to win Pool D

Dominican Republic 7, Venezuela 5: Man, it was so much fun watching those two teams last night. Every home run — the D.R. hit four — was punctuated by a celebration that would have made Madison Bumgarner’s head shoot into the night sky like a bottle rocket. Watch to the end of this video to see Fernando Tatis Jr.’s bat flip for the ages.

This one had some late drama as well, with a late error by Elvis Alvarado (A’s) allowing Venezuela’s fifth run to score. But with runners on first and third and Salvador Pérez representing the winning run, Alvarado atoned, inducing a 5-4-3 double play to end the game.

Both teams knew before the game that they would advance, but there was still a lot on the line. For starters, there’s that perplexing Olympic qualifier scenario we told you about earlier this week. But more imminently: By winning this game, the Dominicans will play Korea in the next round (Friday, 6:30 p.m. ET, FS2). With the loss, Venezuela will now face a tall task: beating Shohei Ohtani and Japan, who went undefeated in Pool C (Saturday, 9 p.m. ET, FOX).

Canada 7, Cuba 2: The Canadians had never advanced past pool play in the WBC. Cuba had never not advanced. Given history’s penchant for echolalia, the Canadians seemed to have a big hill to climb.

But Canada got gutsy performances from a couple of somewhat-unlikely pitchers. Cal Quantrill (Rangers, minor-league deal) started the game and went five innings, allowing just one run on two hits, striking out five. Two relievers later, James Paxton (who hasn’t pitched in the big leagues since August 2024) threw 2 2/3 shutout innings, allowing just one hit and striking out six.

Abraham Toro (Royals, minor-league deal) and Owen Caissie (Marlins) each continued their torrid WBC performances. Toro homered and is hitting .467, while Caissie drove in two runs. He’s hitting a smooth .500 for the tournament.

Canada will now try to avenge its Olympics hockey loss; it faces Team USA on Friday (8 p.m. ET, FOX)

More WBC: 

Too Little Too Late?: A’s trying to solve years-long problem

For years, the cycle repeated:

The A’s draft and develop good-to-great players —>

The A’s start winning games —>

The fans in Oakland start coming back to games —>

The A’s trade those players before they have to pay them —>

The fans in Oakland stop coming to games, in protest —>

The A’s lose a bunch of games, get high draft picks [back to top]

As Evan Drellich writes, it seems like that cycle is being broken, as the A’s have begun signing their young stars to extensions. Drellich:

“Rooker signed a five-year $60 million in December 2024, followed by Butler for seven years and $65.5 million in March 2025. Then this past offseason came two more seven-year deals: Soderstrom for $86 million and Wilson for $70 million.”

Adding 2025 AL Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz to that list has to be a pretty high priority for the A’s.

It’s good for the sport for the A’s to be investing in their roster this way. It’s just a shame that it didn’t happen when they were in Oakland. I bet those fans would have loved to have seen this team.

Instead, they’ll play in Sacramento for the next two years, then move to Las Vegas.

Handshakes and High Fives

Jayson Stark and Tarik Skubal pitch the idea of moving the tournament portion of the WBC to All-Star week. It’s a great idea for the U.S. and Canada, but I’m not sure Japan, Korea and every non-Americas country would be thrilled about the arrangement.

Stephen Nesbitt has our fifth annual edition of using math to rank the best teams of the last 25 years. Spoiler: The Yankees are no longer No. 1.

We figured it was coming, but Astros closer Josh Hader (biceps) will start the season on the IL.

Sam Blum writes that in Japan, there is concern that airing all the games on Netflix — rather than the traditional, free over-the-air broadcasts — could dampen viewership.

Oh hey, Matt Vasgersian is going to call the Opening Day game on … a streamer.

Most-clicked in our last newsletter: Cal Raleigh downplaying the interaction with Randy Arozarena.

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