Australia Announces Itself as Pool C Contender in Win vs. Taiwan
The World Baseball Classic just started and the paradigm has already shifted.
The first two games of the 2026 World Baseball Classic have come and gone, and man, it was fun to have this tournament back on our television screens. Maybe it’s just because I’ve missed baseball so much, but watching games that actually mean something – compared to the dirt and drab that is spring training – was so entertaining.
Sure, the games were at weird times, and a lot of America didn’t have the opportunity to witness them live. Don’t blame me! Blame time zones. Those pesky little buggers. Why can’t everything just happen at a reasonable hour? Why do good sporting events have to take place at 10 p.m. ET and 5 a.m. ET? I’m sure we’ll all adjust, but it’s just so frustrating. Stupid time zones. Stupid sun!
Anyway, Australia’s 3-0 shutout win – which I stayed up late and enjoyed so you didn’t have to, but you totally should’ve stayed up to watch it because it was a ton of fun – over Taiwan kicked off the tournament. This result, while surprising to some and not to others, was indicative of why international sporting events are so great. In front of a sold-out crowd in the Tokyo Dome, the majority of which were Taiwanese supporters, Australia completely took the wind out of everybody’s sails thanks to some dominant pitching and timely hitting. It was a great way to start off the WBC.
The story of this game starts and ends with Australia’s pitching staff. Three Aussie pitchers combined for the 3-0 shutout, a dominant effort that made me completely rethink what this team is capable of. Alex Wells started the game and was lights out. He struck out six, walked just one, and didn’t allow a hit. If the WBC didn’t have the weird pitch count rules that it does – don’t even get me started on those – then Wells would’ve most likely thrown a couple more innings. Alas, he was pulled after three spectacular frames, though it didn’t really matter in the long run as Australia’s arms were just that good.
Jack O’Loughlin, who I can only describe as “lanky,” and Jon Kennedy, who has a weird arm slot that confuses even the viewers at home, shut the door the rest of the way. Both pitchers threw three innings, with O’Loughlin striking out two, walking none, and allowing just two hits. Kennedy was just as dominant and efficient, putting up zero after zero en route to the win.
Of course, the production of Taiwan’s lineup – or lack thereof – is going to be a story throughout the entire tournament. Multiple key pieces were absent due to injury, with captain Chieh-Hsien Chen leaving the game in the sixth inning after getting hit on the hand by a 94 mph fastball from O’Loughlin. Losing all that output proved detrimental in Taiwan’s first game, and it probably will continue to set it back over the course of the next couple of matchups.
Enough about the macro, though. There’s plenty of time for that later (and by later, I mean in a couple of paragraphs). Let’s talk about Travis Bazzana.
The former No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 MLB Draft is no stranger to big moments, but most of those have come at the collegiate level with Oregon State and now in the minor leagues in the Cleveland Guardians’ system. Now he was on the stage he dreamed of as a kid, representing his country in the world’s most prestigious international baseball tournament. And when the moment finally came where he could make a difference, Bazzana capitalized and made sure everybody knew it.
With Australia up 2-0 in the bottom of the seventh thanks to a two-run homer by Robbie Perkins earlier in the game, Bazzana came to the plate with an opportunity to give his team a little extra cushion. And boy, did he ever. He clobbered the first pitch he saw from Yi Chang 383 feet and over the right-field fence for a solo homer. He knew immediately that he’d gone yard, causing him to flip his bat in jubilation. Both Bazzana and the Australia dugout went absolutely ballistic. It was almost as if they knew that this home run was the dagger. With how Taiwan was hitting, there was no way Australia was losing now. It had the momentum, the swagger, and best of all, it had Bazzana.
“The two things I thought about most growing up was playing in the WBC – thinking about the Tokyo Dome because we always come here – and obviously playing in the World Series in MLB,” Bazzana said. “It’s special.”
But while Bazzana was living his childhood dream and the rest of the Australians were going nuts, the crowd in the Tokyo Dome was completely silent. It’s like the world was frozen in place around Bazzana as he rounded the bases. It was a weird sight, one which Bazzana himself thought odd.
“It was a weird feeling when I hit the home run because the crowd went very quiet, and it was strange,” Bazzana said after the game. “My mind didn't know what to think because I was expecting a cheer, but, no, it's so, so quiet.”
Still, it didn’t take away from the absolute joy and wonder that the moment inspired. Australia was up 3-0 thanks to the wonder kid’s blast, and it was almost certainly going to take home a major victory.
These are the moments that the WBC is built to capture best. Bazzana has never played an inning in Major League Baseball. Heck, a good majority of either Australia or Taiwan has never stepped foot on an MLB diamond. But that doesn’t matter. Both sides had one goal in mind when the game started, and that was to represent their country well and come away with a win. That passion was evident from the first pitch to the last out, and Bazzana’s solo shot in the seventh – a moment that he and his entire country are sure to never forget – was the epitome of why international competition is the best that sports have to offer.
Australia’s path to the knockout round has become a whole lot simpler after its “upset” of Taiwan as it can now throw all its eggs into beating Korea on March 9. While taking down a nation as in love with baseball as Korea seems unlikely, remember that Australia did it in the 2023 WBC and can certainly do it again, especially if it pitches like it did versus Taiwan. Should it win that monumental clash, it’ll most likely secure one of the top two spots in Pool C, barring a supernatural loss to Czechia that would set the entire group on fire.
The outlook is less rosy for Taiwan. Man, what a disaster. The Taiwanese really needed to win this one if they wanted a chance at advancing. Now that they didn’t, everything has become a whole lot more complicated. A massive bout versus Japan, the reigning champions that are filled to the brim with talent, is up next. That matchup is essentially win-or-go-home for Taiwan, as falling to 0-2 is almost a death sentence in a group with Japan and Korea. Taiwan has a deep baseball history, especially at the youth level, but it’ll need a minor miracle if it wants to extend that history into the 2026 WBC.
Fun baseball, huh? There should be a whole lot more of it in the next two weeks.