In search of their second title and first since 2013, the Dominicans will play against the United States or Canada in a semifinal on Sunday in Miami. The Dominicans are 5-0 in the tournament, they have outscored their opponents 51-10 while batting .312 and with 14 home runs they tied the WBC record set by Mexico in 2009.
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Fernando Tatis Jr. drove in two runs and has 11 RBIs in the tournament. He is tied for third in a single WBC, behind only Masataka Yoshida’s 13 for Japan in 2023 and Wladimir Balentien’s 12 for the Netherlands in 2017.
Wells, who came in as a defensive replacement in the top of the seventh, ducked and poked a first-pitch cutter from Hyeong Jun So from the front of the second deck in right. Wells was born in Arizona to a mother of Dominican descent.
He hit the second home run of the tournament for the Dominicans after Juan Soto’s drive that ended a 12-1 group stage victory over the Netherlands.
Backed by three runs in the second inning and four in the third, winner Christopher Sánchez struck out eight in five two-hit innings.
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South Korea, which lost a semifinal in 2006 and the final in 2009, had been eliminated in the first round three times in a row before reaching the quarterfinals this year.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. walked against loser Hyun Jin Ryu and scored the game’s first run from first base with a sliding header on Junior Caminero’s double into the left field corner. Julio Rodríguez followed with an RBI groundout and Tatis had an RBI single.
Soto scored on Guerrero’s double in a four-run fourth, wrapping his arm around catcher Dong Won Park on a sliding header.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb