No stranger to big moments, Suárez forever a Venezuelan hero

Unpredictable as these things are, Eugenio Suárez's go-ahead RBI double in the ninth inning of the championship game of the 2026 World Baseball Classic -- the hit that won it all for Team Venezuela, 3-2, over Team USA, on Tuesday night -- was a long time coming.

With pinch-runner Javier Sanoja on second base after a stolen base with none out in the top of the ninth inning of a 2-2 game, Suárez ripped a 3-2 pitch from Garrett Whitlock for a booming double into the left-center-field gap. He stood majestically on second base, exulting with his outstretched arms reaching for the sky.

"Nobody believed in Venezuela, but now we won the championship today," Suárez said to FOX's Ken Rosenthal. "And this is a celebration for all of the Venezuelan country."

Asked by Rosenthal what he was thinking when standing on second base, he said: "I just prayed. Pointing to my family out there. They were happy for me."

It harkened another huge hit from Suárez. But like many brilliant performances for losing teams, it's already mostly lost to history. Five months ago -- to the day, in fact -- Suárez hit a game-winning grand slam that the city of Seattle won't soon forget. With one swing, the veteran third baseman re-acquired by the Mariners at the Trade Deadline took the club as far as it has ever been in the postseason, a win away from the World Series. (And, to give Suárez all the credit he's owed, the grand slam was actually his second home run of the night.)

It wasn't to be, in that case. Suárez's heroics in Game 5 of the 2025 ALCS against the Blue Jays were overshadowed by heartbreaking losses in Game 6 and Game 7, and another magical Mariners run fell short. At the time, he couldn't have known how soon another shot at heroism would come.

And the story wrote itself. Team Venezuela, in its first WBC championship game, drew a familiar opponent. Its elimination in the quarterfinal round of the 2023 tournament had come at the hands of Team USA, and in stunning fashion, as a Trea Turner grand slam erased a two-run Venezuelan lead in the eighth inning. And for a moment on Tuesday night -- when Turner's Phillies teammate Bryce Harper crushed a game-tying two-run home run, also in the eighth, off of Andrés Machado -- it looked as if the same nightmare might be about to unfold.

Not this time. Suárez's booming double will stand forever as a game-winner -- we'd call it a consolation prize, but that wouldn't even remotely do it justice.

But this was not a singular moment for Suárez. It was all about the team.

"The union. We were together the whole time," he told Rosenthal. "We're not just teammates, we're family. This team is awesome. We are family here. That's why we play with passion. We love. We feel the jersey, we feel our country. That's why this is life for us as players, as the people, as human beings, and as Venezuelans. Now we are the champions."