Thoughts After USA WBC Game One

By Mike Whiteman March 8th, 2026 I watched Team USA's first game of the World Baseball Classic Tournament, a 15-5 drubbing of Brazil which was actually pretty close after eight innings. The Americans scored seven in the ninth to run away with it. Some quick thoughts: 1. Aaron Judge opened the scoring with a two run home run in the top of first inning. He was pretty animated trotting the bases afterwards.

2. Brazil has a team mostly of players who played some lower level minor leagues or no Organized Baseball experience at all. In fact, there were two 17-year-olds who took the mound.

3. One of those youngsters was Joseph Contreras, son of former Yankee Jose Contreras. He's a senior in high school, and came on in the second inning. He brought some heat - a high 90s fastball - and induced Judge to ground into a double play with the bases full. He also struggled a bit with control, which wasn't too surprising.

4. Another interesting Team Brazil player was Lucas Ramirez, the 20-year-old son of longtime MLB player Manny Ramirez. He has 60 games of minor league experience in the Angels organization, stretched between Rookie and A-ball. The lefty swinger smacked two home runs - one off USA starter Logan Webb and another off lefty reliever Gabe Speier, who in 2025 held lefty hitters to a .179 batting average and .516 OPS. 5. Brazil pitchers walked 17 batters. With them being clearly overmatched, you could see them nibbling at the strike zone, trying not to allow the big hit. The struck out two batters, while Team USA pitchers fanned 16. 6. The USA players didn't exactly put on a clinic either, they looked like players who were in early March Spring Training. The game time was three hours and 30 minutes, and it felt it.

7. The nightmare scenario that so many fans fear happened when Byron Buxton was hit by a pitch in the forearm and was removed from the game. Thankfully, X-rays were negative and Team USA manager Mark DeRosa reported Buxton "fine".

8. Of course, the Americans are stacked, as after Buxton left and DeRosa reached to his bench for Pete Crow-Armstrong. This is arguably the best American WBC roster ever. Here's the boxscore: https://www.mlb.com/gameday/united-states-vs-brazil/2026/03/06/788128/final/box All in all, the final result was as expected. There were some fun stories, but these early games are basically warmups for the Quarterfinal and Championship rounds when they encounter teams like Japan, Dominican Republic, etc. Of course, they must win these pool games first to get there. Go team USA!