2026 World Baseball Classic: Aaron Judge sets tone with first-inning homer

HOUSTON—The moment the United States needed a spark, Aaron Judge delivered. On a night when the Americans drew a tournament-record 17 walks and rolled to a 15-run outburst against Brazil, it was Judge’s first-inning blast that announced Team USA’s arrival in the 2026 World Baseball Classic.

Batting second and wearing the captain’s “C” bestowed on him by manager Mark DeRosa, Judge took a 3-0 green light and punished a middle-middle sweeper, launching it 405 feet into the right-field seats for a two-run homer that gave the tournament favorites an immediate 2-0 lead. The shot came in Judge’s first-ever Classic at-bat—he had declined invitations to previous editions—and set the table for a relentless offensive display that never let up.

“He’s our tone-setter,” DeRosa said afterward. “When your captain jumps on the first pitch he sees in the biggest tournament in the world, it sends a message.”

The long ball also provided an early cushion for starter Logan Webb, who recovered from a leadoff homer by 20-year-old Brazilian slugger Lucas Ramirez to retire 12 straight and punch out six across four innings. Ramirez, youngest son of Manny Ramirez and owner of only three professional home runs entering the night, stunned the Daikin Park crowd with solo shots in the first and eighth, the only Brazilian highlights on an otherwise lopsided evening.

While Judge finished 1-for-4 with two walks, two RBIs and three runs scored, the story was the Americans’ patience. Brazil’s nine pitchers needed 221 pitches to navigate the onslaught, issuing free passes in bunches—five with the bases loaded—and watching the U.S. score four in the fifth and seven more in the ninth. Brice Turang’s bases-clearing double highlighted the former frame; Kyle Schwarber and Roman Anthony added multi-hit nights as the lineup turned walks into runs with ruthless efficiency.

Brazil’s brightest arm belonged to 17-year-old Joseph Contreras, son of former Yankees right-hander Jose Contreras, who broke Judge’s bat on an inning-ending double play in the second and touched 97 mph with a forkball straight from his father’s playbook. Yet even Contreras couldn’t slow the American juggernaut for long.

Team USA stranded 13 runners and went 5-for-21 with men in scoring position—flaws that will be scrutinized in later rounds—but the patient approach wore down every arm Brazil trotted to the mound. With the win, the Americans open Pool B play at 1-0 and turn their attention to Great Britain on Saturday night.

Judge’s homer may have been the exclamation point, but the entire lineup authored the statement: the U.S. is here to finish the job after falling to Japan in the 2023 final.