{"id":502203,"date":"2026-03-14T22:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T02:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/acuna-jr-and-ohtani-open-venezuela-japan-with-historic-home-runs-in-the-world-baseball-classic\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T22:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T02:06:09","slug":"acuna-jr-and-ohtani-open-venezuela-japan-with-historic-home-runs-in-the-world-baseball-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/sports\/baseball\/acuna-jr-and-ohtani-open-venezuela-japan-with-historic-home-runs-in-the-world-baseball-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"Acu\u00f1a Jr. and Ohtani open Venezuela-Japan with historic home runs in the World Baseball Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"MIAMI. \u2013 The quarterfinal duel of the 2026 World Baseball Classic between Venezuela and Japan kicked off with a spectacle worthy of a movie this Saturday at loanDepot Park.\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>You may be interested in<\/strong>: <em><a href=\"https:\/\/ab.deultimominuto.net\/deportes\/beisbol\/shohei-ohtani-deslumbra-con-su-poder-en-practica-de-bateo-antes-del-juego-ante-venezuela\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Shohei Ohtani dazzles with his power in batting practice before the game against Venezuela<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\nThe first blow was delivered by the stellar Venezuelan Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr., who punished the second pitch of the Japanese starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto and hit a home run into the stands of right-center field to put his team ahead just at the beginning of the game.\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"es\" dir=\"ltr\">Ronald Acu\u00f1a Jr. la desaparece en su primer turno y Venezuela ya manda 1-0 sobre Jap\u00f3n.\u00a0 \u00a1Poder puro para empezar el camino a semis! \ud83d\udcaa\ud83c\udffb\u26be\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/upf28iw1yA\">pic.twitter.com\/upf28iw1yA<\/a><\/p>&mdash; LaIguanaTV (@Laiguanatv) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Laiguanatv\/status\/2032998856665829417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 15, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\nThe connection came off Acu\u00f1a&#8217;s bat at 106.2 miles per hour and traveled 401 feet, giving Venezuela an early lead in their attempt to return to a tournament semifinal for the first time since 2009.\n\nThe explosive opening marked a historic event: it&#8217;s the first time in World Baseball Classic history that both lead-off hitters of a game started the game with a home run. In total, it has only happened on 13 and 14 combined occasions within the tournament.\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h3>\n\n\nBefore the start of the game, Ohtani starred in another curious scene by greeting Venezuelan legend Miguel Cabrera, current batting coach for the Venezuelan team.\n\nDuring the pre-game meeting, the Japanese star rubbed his bat on the outside of Cabrera&#8217;s leg, in a humorous gesture that was interpreted as an attempt to &#8220;steal the powers&#8221; from the historic slugger.\n\nOhtani, considered one of the most extraordinary talents in modern baseball, has multiple MVP awards, All-Star Game appearances, and World Series championships. However, one of the achievements he still pursues is to conquer the offensive Triple Crown, a feat that Cabrera achieved in 2012.\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MIAMI. \u2013 The quarterfinal duel of the 2026 World Baseball Classic between Venezuela and Japan kicked off with a spectacle worthy of a movie this Saturday at loanDepot Park. You may be interested in: Shohei Ohtani dazzles with his power in batting practice before the game against Venezuela The first blow was delivered by the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[35481],"tags":[611,40231,41186],"class_list":["post-502203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-baseball","tag-deultimominuto","tag-dominican-republic","tag-theperiodicodelatruth"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-26E3","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","dum_api":{"author_name":"Redacci\u00f3n De \u00daltimo Minuto","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/cropped-logo-de-ultimo-minuto-96x96.png","categories_name":["Baseball"],"featured_media_url":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}