Venezuela qualify for WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup 2026
World No. 5 Venezuela won a WBSC Americas U-23 Baseball Qualifier for the South America region held in Lima, Peru and join No. 8 Panama, No. 7 Puerto Rico and No. 9 Cuba as teams representing the Americas in the WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup 2026, which will take place in Nicaragua.
Led by manager Oswaldo Navarro, Venezuela completed the two-way round-robin undefeated. They won a pair of close games with Brazil and Venezuela, both 4-3, to get started.
Reliever Carlos Aular pitched 1.2 formidable innings to earn the win against No. 22 Brazil on October 20 and catcher Giovanny Rivero had four RBIs
Third baseman Gabriel Rodriguez, the tournament's MVP, hit a three-run homer off reliever Niko Weber to beat No. 34 Argentina on October 21.
Venezuela clinched first place after a pitching duel with Brazil, winning 1-0. Rivero doubled in the top of the first off Joao Marostica for the only run of the game. Mikell Manzano pitched five scoreless innings for the win.
World No. 44 Peru hosted the event at Villa Maria del Triunfo in Lima.
The Final Standings
- Venezuela (6-0)
- Brazil (3-3)
- Argentina (2-4)
- Peru (1-5)
All results, boxscores and play-by-play are on the WBSC Americas website
Nicaragua will host the VI WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup from November 6 to 15, 2026. The WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup is an evolution of the U-21 Baseball World Cup, hosted by the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association (CTBA) in 2014 in Taichung.
The Local Organising Committee has proposed three venues - Soberanía National Stadium in Managua, the brand-new Roberto Clemente Stadium in Masaya, and Rigoberto López Pérez Stadium in León - to host the tournament. The venues will be confirmed at a later stage.
Six other teams have already qualified. No. 16 Nicaragua have earned an automatic berth as host nation, while No. 17 Great Britain and No. 15 Czechia secured Europe’s two tickets by finishing first and second, respectively, at the European Championship held in Czechia this past August.
No. 1 Japan, No. 2 Chinese Taipei and No. 4 Korea qualified through the XXXI BFA Asian Championship in September.
Africa and Oceania will qualify one National Team each, completing the 12-team field.