Ron DeSantis once captained the Yale baseball team and batted .336 his senior year.
That background matters now, because the Florida governor just called his shot on the biggest baseball stage in the world.
When Team USA walked into Sunday night's WBC semifinal against the most dangerous lineup assembled in tournament history, DeSantis wasn't watching from his couch.
DeSantis Issued His Executive Order
Before first pitch at Miami's loanDepot park, DeSantis posted to X with a message that fired up every America First baseball fan in the country.
"Go USA – beat the DR tonight in Miami!" the governor wrote, before promising to take matters into his own hands.
"Executive order incoming to lift pitch limit for Skenes. Gotta go all out for America. Marlins stadium will [be] nuts!"
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2033239686626320771?s=20
Dominican Republic fans fired back immediately.
One called their lineup the "Avengers."
Another sneered that Skenes could pitch the whole game and it still wouldn't matter.
They weren't entirely wrong to be confident – Fernando Tatis Jr., Ketel Marte, and Juan Soto at the top of the order, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hitting cleanup, Manny Machado and Junior Caminero batting fifth and sixth.
The Dominican Republic had steamrolled through this tournament scoring more than 10 runs every single game.
They'd set a WBC record with 15 home runs as a team.
Manager Albert Pujols had assembled something that looked less like a baseball lineup and more like a collection of the sport's best talents on earth.
They were the prohibitive favorite.
America didn't care.
Skenes and the Bullpen Shut the Avengers Down
Paul Skenes is the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner and the most electric arm in baseball.
The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner took the mound for his country with everything on the line – and delivered.
Caminero touched him for a solo homer in the second.
That was it.
Skenes held that loaded Dominican lineup to one run across 4 1/3 innings, then handed the ball to a bullpen that refused to blink.
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2033531769799254303?s=20
Tyler Rogers got Juan Soto to bounce into a double play the moment things got complicated in the fifth.
Griffin Jax – a graduate of the Air Force Academy – mowed through the heart of the Dominican order in the sixth.
David Bednar worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh.
Garrett Whitlock handled a clean eighth.
Then closer Mason Miller stepped in for the ninth, and Miami held its breath.
Runner on third, two outs, 3-2 count, 101 miles per hour on the radar gun.
Miller unleashed a wicked slider – low, borderline, absolutely filthy – and home plate umpire Cory Blaser called strike three.
Team USA is going to the finals.
"The D.R. is the toughest lineup I've ever faced, for sure," Skenes said afterward.
They hit .250 against him.
The Two Homers That Silenced the Doubters
The media narrative going into Sunday was that Team USA's bats had been disappointing.
They weren't wrong.
So DeRosa made a move – pulled underperforming stars Alex Bregman and Cal Raleigh, inserted Gunnar Henderson and Will Smith.
Henderson, who hadn't even been in the starting lineup until that adjustment, led off the fourth inning against Luis Severino and launched one over the right-center wall.
Game tied.
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2033528478193361312?s=20
One batter later, Roman Anthony – a minor leaguer who bought a ticket to watch the 2023 WBC championship in this same stadium three years ago – crushed his second homer of the tournament to put Team USA in front 2-1.
"I was here the last time around watching the championship game heading into my first Spring Training," Anthony said after the game.
Now he's playing in one.
Severino had been dealing to that point – struck out Aaron Judge and Kyle Schwarber in succession with two men on base in the third.
Then Henderson and Anthony went back to back, and 36,337 fans at loanDepot park lost their minds.
America held that 2-1 lead for five innings without adding another run.
That's how dominant this pitching performance was.
What the Left Missed About DeSantis's Post
The media types who smirked at DeSantis's "executive order" joke got exactly what they deserved Sunday night.
And here's what they still don't understand.
DeSantis wasn't pretending.
A Yale-educated governor and former Navy JAG officer who competed in the Little League World Series at 12, beat a future MLB draft pick in a high school state semifinal, and captained an Ivy League baseball team doesn't post about pitch limits because he's pandering.
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2033379250313576498?s=20
He posted because he actually knows what an 80-pitch limit means for a power pitcher facing the best lineup in baseball.
He posted because that's what men who love this sport do.
The left spent years trying to make DeSantis look ridiculous.
On Sunday night, in a packed Miami stadium, with the Dominican Republic's "Avengers" silenced and Team USA punching their ticket to the championship game, the governor got the last laugh.
That's what the left always gets wrong about conservatives.
They mock. We win.
Team USA faces Italy or Venezuela in Tuesday's championship game on FOX.
Sources:
- Jarrod Castillo, "Ron DeSantis orders WBC rule change to benefit Team USA against Dominican Republic," The Mirror US, March 15, 2026.
- "USA stifles Dominican Republic's offense to make WBC final," ESPN, March 16, 2026.
- "USA 2, Dominican Republic 1: How U.S. Advanced to WBC Championship in Thrilling Nail-biter," Sports Illustrated, March 16, 2026.
- "Team USA Advances in Nailbiter Against Dominican Republic," USA Baseball, March 16, 2026.
- "WBC Daily: Team USA Reaches Championship Game," FOX Sports, March 15, 2026.
- "From Little League World Series to Yale: A Look at Ron DeSantis' Baseball Career," Sports Illustrated, November 15, 2022.
