The long-anticipated matchup between Team USA and the Dominican Republic lived up to the hype in the World Baseball Classic semifinal. The United States advanced to the championship game with a 2–1 victory, powered by clutch pitching and two timely home runs.

The Dominican Republic struck first with a solo shot from Junior Caminero, but Team USA responded in the fourth inning when Gunnar Henderson and Roman Anthony each launched solo home runs to take the lead.

On the mound, Paul Skenes delivered a strong start and the bullpen handled the rest. The U.S. pitching staff held one of the most explosive lineups in the tournament to just one run, with closer Mason Miller shutting the door in the ninth to send the Americans to the WBC final.

This was the matchup everyone wanted and the result reinforced how the tournament is evolving.

The Dominican Republic came in with arguably the most dangerous offense in the field, averaging double-digit runs earlier in the tournament. But the U.S. didn’t try to outslug them. They beat them with pitching depth and timely power.

The bigger takeaway is how much the WBC has started to resemble October baseball. Tight games. Elite pitching. Small margins deciding everything.

When a semifinal between lineups stacked with MVP candidates turns into a 2–1 game decided by one inning, that tells you how far international baseball has come.

The Cincinnati Reds will be without their top starter for much of the first half after Hunter Greene underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right elbow to remove bone chips and loose bodies. Doctors expect Greene to miss 14 to 16 weeks, which puts his return timeline around July.

The 26-year-old right-hander had been expected to start Opening Day for Cincinnati before elbow soreness surfaced during spring training. Tests confirmed the bone fragments, and the club opted for surgery rather than risking a more serious ligament injury.

Greene has been electric when healthy, averaging nearly 100 mph on his fastball and emerging as one of the Reds’ most dominant arms. But durability has been an ongoing theme in his career, with injuries limiting his innings in several seasons.

For Cincinnati, this is a brutal early-season hit.

Greene is the pitcher who raises the ceiling of the entire roster. Without him, the Reds’ rotation loses its power arm and its biggest swing-and-miss weapon.

The positive is the nature of the procedure. Removing bone chips is far different from ligament reconstruction, and the Reds are optimistic his UCL remains intact.

If Greene returns in July healthy, he could still play a massive role in the second half.

But for a team trying to stay competitive in the NL Central, the first few months just got a lot tougher.

The San Diego Padres could soon become the most expensive franchise sale in MLB history. Reports suggest the team is expected to sell for more than $3 billion, which would break the current MLB record set when Steve Cohen bought the New York Mets for $2.4 billion in 2020.

The potential sale comes after the passing of longtime owner Peter Seidler, with several ownership groups reportedly interested in purchasing the franchise. The Padres were bought for roughly $800 million in 2012, meaning the team’s value could nearly quadruple in just over a decade.

MLB franchise values keep exploding. If the Padres clear $3 billion, it is another reminder that owning a baseball team has become one of the most valuable assets in sports, even for teams that are not in the biggest markets.

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