Vlad goes airborne, scores on incredible Superman slide

MIAMI — The Dominican Republic has battered its opponents this World Baseball Classic, launching home runs with abandon, with wild celebrations at home plate.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t score in other ways.

In Friday night's 10-0 quarterfinal victory against Korea, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. drew a second-inning walk against his former teammate, Hyun Jin Ryu. (Vlad marked the occasion by doffing his helmet and giving the veteran starter a bow.) Junior Caminero then followed with a double into the left-field corner.

It wasn’t a bad pitch from Ryu: The ball was just 0.61 feet off the ground, the lowest pitch for an extra-base hit in the 2023 or ’26 Classic and lower by far than any pitch Caminero has hit for any base hit in MLB.

Not that it mattered: Guerrero raced around the bases and appeared to stumble as he turned to home plate. The throw to catcher Dong Won Park beat him, but with the ball up the line a little, Vlad needed to show off his aerial abilities: Leaping into the air and toward the inside of home plate, Guerrero narrowly avoided the tag to score the D.R.’s first run.

"I told him I'd give him a Wagyu steak, and he dove in like into a swimming pool," Caminero said.

After that, the hit parade didn’t stop: Though no baseballs went over the fence, the D.R. pushed two more runs across the board with an RBI groundout from Julio Rodríguez and a single from Fernando Tatis Jr. to knock Ryu out of the game.

After Vlad scored and was returning to the dugout, Juan Soto could be seen showing off Jarrod Dyson’s classic “Vroom Vroom” reaction.

So, an inning later when Soto was on base and Guerrero laced a double to the gap, well, he knew what he had to do.

Despite the throw to Park beating Soto by more than a few steps, the Mets outfielder was able to swim around the tag, adding another run to the D.R.’s score and pushing his team a little closer to a spot in the semifinals.

"Speaking about Vladimir Guerrero and Juan Soto, maybe they are not the fastest runners, but they were aggressive on the bases," manager Albert Pujols said. "When you have this kind of team that can damage you not only with the bat, but the way they play so aggressively, they know about the importance of this tournament for themselves, for the country, for our homeland. And at the same time, they respect baseball, and they are going to play baseball the way it is supposed to be played, taking advantage of the mistakes made by our rivals."