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Japan’s World Baseball Classic title defense is over. Saturday night at loanDepot Park in Miami, Venezuela rallied from behind to eliminate Japan (VEN 8, JPN 5) and advance to the semifinals. Venezuela is one step away from Tuesday’s Championship Game and Japan will head home following its worst World Baseball Classic finish ever.

Saturday’s game started with a bang. Two bangs, actually. Ronald Acuña Jr. and Shohei Ohtani have combined to win the last three NL MVP awards and they opened Saturday’s game with leadoff home runs. Acuña did the honors in the top of the first inning, then Ohtani responded in the bottom half. It’s the first-ever WBC game with two leadoff homers. This, right here, is the good stuff:

Reigning World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto got hit hard early against Venezuela. Acuña tagged him for the leadoff homer and three of the first six batters he faced had extra-base hits. Yamamoto did eventually settle down, though. He retired nine of the final 10 batters he faced, including five via strikeout. Yamamoto finished with two runs allowed in four innings.

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Venezuela took a 2-1 lead into the third inning before Japan jumped on starter Ranger Suárez. Four of the first five batters they sent to the plate in the third inning reached base, and one batter who didn’t reach laid down a sacrifice bunt. Center fielder Shota Morishita, who replaced the injured Seiya Suzuki (right knee discomfort) in the second inning, slugged a three-run homer to end Suárez’s night.

Morishita’s home run gave Japan a 5-2 lead and it felt like they were in control of the game, but once the bullpen door swung open, it was advantage Venezuela. Maikel Garcia got Venezuela to within 5-4 with a two-run homer in the fifth, then Wilyer Abreu clobbered a three-run blast to turn the 5-4 deficit into a 7-5 lead in the sixth inning in an electric moment.

That’s a brand name Abreu took deep. Hiromi Itoh was the 2025 winner of the Eiji Sawamura Award, which is Japan’s Cy Young. Yamamoto held Venezuela to two runs in four innings. Five Japan relievers were charged with six runs in five innings the rest of the night. The game swung when five of eight Venezuela hitters reached base, spanning the fifth and sixth innings.

Venezuela’s bullpen, meanwhile, stood tall behind Suárez. Six relievers held Japan scoreless across 6 ⅓ innings, and retired 13 straight at one point. Japan’s best chance to get back into the game came in the eighth inning, when Kazuma Okamoto and Munetaka Murakami strung together back-to-back two-out singles. Andres Machado got Shugo Maki to ground out to end the threat.

Tigers minor-league lefty Enmanuel De Jesus did the heaviest lifting out of the Venezuela bullpen, soaking up 2 ⅓ scoreless innings in the middle of the game to give the offense a chance to rally. He struck out three, including Ohtani with two runners on base in the fourth inning. De Jesus was awarded the win for his effort.

Ohtani went 1 for 4 with the leadoff homer and an intentional walk against Venezuela. He struck out twice and popped up behind second base to end the game.

Venezuela will play Italy in the semifinals Monday night in Miami after Italy continued its Cinderella run Saturday with a nail-biter 8-6 win over Puerto Rico. The winter of Monday’s Italy vs. Venezuela game will advance to the Championship Game and face the winner of Sunday’s highly anticipated USA vs. Dominican Republic game.

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This is Japan’s lowest-ever finish in the WBC. They won the 2006 and 2009 events, finished third in the 2013 and 2017 and won the 2023 WBC. Japan will finish either fifth or sixth in the final standings this year, depending on how Sunday’s USA vs. Dominican Republic game plays out.

As for Venezuela, this is the first time they’ve advanced to the semifinals since 2009, when they lost to Korea and finished fourth in the tournament. That is Venezuela’s best WBC finish ever. Saturday’s win also clinched a berth in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

The Vikings did on Thursday what the entire NFL world expected them to do, when they signed former No. 1 overall pick Kyler Murray to a cheap, one-year deal as a veteran addition to their quarterback room. Murray, who was the 11th-ranked player on Pete Prisco’s Top 100 Free Agents list, considered going other places for a backup role but ultimately decided to battle it out with J.J. McCarthy for the starting job in Minnesota.

It was the right move, both for Murray and the Vikings. It also has a pretty massive implications for not just Minnesota’s win total and 2026 season futures, but on the rest of the NFC North as well.

Let’s break it all down.

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Why is this move smart for the Vikings?

First: it’s a great move for the Vikings, because it gives them a veteran quarterback who (despite a somewhat shaky track record) has a strong pedigree and has made the playoffs. Murray should be highly motivated to beat out McCarthy for the starting job and play well in order to boost up his free-agent stock.

Murray is polarizing. He’s been a high-profile two-sport athlete ever since he played at Oklahoma. He’s been meme’d for his Call of Duty habits, he’s pulled off miracles, he’s won a lot of games off script and he’s also never reached the full potential everyone expected out of him when he was drafted with the first pick.

But the Vikings missed the playoffs and took a massive step back in 2025 because they had to depend entirely on McCarthy, who simply wasn’t ready to be an NFL starter yet. The quarterback issue was only exacerbated by the two other options on the roster in 2024 — Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones — leaving and enjoying extremely high levels of success while McCarthy struggled. Darnold winning a Super Bowl with an elite defense in Seattle had to weigh heavy on everyone in Minnesota.

Murray might not take Minnesota to the promised land, but he’s a fantastic safety net at an extremely reasonable price. He’ll play for the minimum in 2026, with both parties letting Arizona foot the $36 million bill for the majority of his services next year.

There’s almost no risk here for the Vikings — if Murray is great, they benefit by winning football games. If McCarthy beats him out, it’s promising for the franchise’s future. And if both QBs are terrible, the cost at taking the shot was completely minimal, at least on the Murray end of things.

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Why is this move smart for Murray?

Kyler could have gotten more money elsewhere, potentially, but this is the perfect blend of having his cake and eating it too. Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell has revitalized some careers, including Darnold and Jones, and Murray isn’t losing any money by taking a low price from the Vikings. In fact, with agent Erik Burkhardt negotiating a deal that includes a clause preventing the Vikings from franchise tagging Murray, Kyler is perfectly set up to win the job, play well and cash in massively during free agency next offseason.

With a strong offensive scheme and Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison and T.J. Hockenson in place, Murray will have weapons at his disposal, assuming he wins what we have to believe is a true competition at the position.

Having been soft benched by the Cardinals last year, Murray should be completely healthy heading into the offseason. The Vikings’ willingness to do what’s necessary to win games coupled with his experience advantage over McCarthy give him a real shot to win the job and put up strong numbers.

Minnesota might also be willing to overpay for a legitimate starter they have on the roster next offseason given what happened to Darnold and Jones, so if Murray plays well, he could end up cashing in with the team who just inked him to a cheap deal.

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Will Murray actually win the job?

I’d say it’s pretty likely at this point given McCarthy’s struggles last year and his injury history. Obviously McCarthy will be extremely motivated to prove the Vikings smart for drafting him and silence the doubters, but it’s an uphill battle against a former No. 1 overall pick who has a ton of experience starting in the NFL and can match or exceed the youngster’s mobility.

Assuming, again, this is an actual competition (and why wouldn’t it be?), Murray should be roughly a -150 favorite (at least) to start Week 1 if we assume everyone is healthy.

How much did Vikings futures move?

Not as much as you might think! The line didn’t move itself, but the juice moved pretty massively on the news that Murray joined the Vikings. When we profiled the NFL win totals for the NFC in 2026, the Vikings were at 8.5 with the juice pretty heavy on the Under (-140).

After the Murray news became official, the line shifted to -115 on the Under. It’s pretty remarkable that the addition of a high-profile quarterback in free agency is only worth 35 cents to a season-long total. It’s also worth noting the Vikings cut several key defensive players as well, which obviously counteracts the Murray signing.

Worth noting: when we profiled the Vkings last week, the expectation was Murray would be signing there.

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What does this mean for NFL betting?

This largely depends on your belief in O’Connell as a quarterback guru. Personally, I think he’s an elite coach and this signing, even if Murray isn’t necessarily an elite quarterback, significantly raises the floor for Minnesota. The Vikings could have won 10 games last year if they had just re-signed Darnold or Jones, and probably would have done so fairly easily.

Murray’s a different cat from those two, but I would be worried about backing the Vikings with just McCarthy on board. Murray will be highly motivated now. He wants to earn that big paycheck (he’s quietly already 28 years old).

But let’s paint a different picture and grab some value here: the Vikings aren’t in heavy on Murray and we don’t know his status completely when it comes to health. He’s new to the system. Maybe this is motivation for McCarthy and this isn’t a real competition, and they start the youngster out of the gate no matter what happens. The defense takes a step back and the offensive line isn’t very good.

The Bears, Packers and Lions could all be awesome, which is a very feasible scenario. And now instead of laying -140, we get to pay pretty reasonable juice to fade a team that is objectively the worst in the division.

Essentially, if you didn’t love the Vikings before and wanted to bet the Under, now is a much, much more opportune time to fade Kyler and Minnesota than it was just a few days ago.

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