The first act of this confrontation was starred by the stellar Venezuelan Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr., who, in his first at-bat, hit an impressive home run against Japanese starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The ball, propelled at 106.2 miles per hour, traveled 401 feet, giving Venezuela an initial lead of 1-0.<\/p>\n\n\nRonald Acu\u00f1a Jr. hits it out of the park in his first at-bat and Venezuela is already leading 1-0 over Japan. Pure power to start the road to the semis!\nLaIguanaTV\n\n\n
This home run not only meant an early advantage for Venezuela, but also marked a milestone in the history of the World Baseball Classic: for the first time, both lead-off hitters of a game started the game with a home run. A fact that has only happened on a few occasions throughout the tournament.<\/p>\n\n\nBefore the start of the game, Shohei Ohtani, Japanese star, starred in a curious moment when he greeted Miguel Cabrera, Venezuelan legend and current batting coach of the team. Ohtani rubbed his bat on Cabrera’s leg, in a gesture that was interpreted as a humorous wink.\n\nTitle of the publication: SHOHEI OHTANI DOESN\u2019T WASTE TIME.\n\nOhtani, recognized for his exceptional talent, has multiple MVP awards and All-Star Game appearances. One of his goals is to achieve the offensive Triple Crown, a feat that Miguel Cabrera conquered in 2012.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Venezuela vs. Japan: Epic Duel in the 2026 World Baseball Classic The loanDepot Park witnessed an electrifying quarter-final match in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, where Venezuela and Japan starred in a duel that kept fans on the edge of their seats. The first act of this confrontation was starred by the stellar Venezuelan Ronald […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[997],"tags":[12280,642,2182,5529],"class_list":{"0":"post-113671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nationals","8":"tag-coin","9":"tag-japan","10":"tag-venezuela","11":"tag-world-classic"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}