Dominican Republic beats Puerto Rico to take World Baseball Classic title

Yet he is just old enough that none of baseball's Molina brothers -- two of whom last night played for his World Baseball Classic championship-game opponent Puerto Rico -- ever saw Pena play during his glory years as a three-time Gold Glove winner with the Pirates.

Now, Pena has a place in WBC history as well, as his Dominican Republic team triumphed 3-0 over Puerto Rico in last night's rainy championship finale. In two previous WBC tournaments, the Dominicans had never advanced past the second round. This year -- Pena's first at the helm -- the Dominican Republic won nine straight games to become the first team ever to sweep WBC play en route to the title.

"It is a unique group," Pena said of his WBC championship team. "And we keep saying we are going to enjoy every single moment, because we don't know if this group will be together again. I doubt it. But in the meantime, we enjoy ourselves."

Dominican Republic starting pitcher Samuel Deduno seemed to be enjoying himself more than anyone. An eighth-year pro who didn't crack a major league starting rotation until last season with the Twins, Deduno was a superstar in front of 35,703 fans in San Francisco last night.

Deduno went five strong innings, cruising through four before the rain started to come down. In the fifth, the moisture began to wreak havoc on the mound, and also on Deduno. With the Dominican Republic leading 2-0, he issued two walks and threw a wild pitch while trying to temper his footing. Then with two on and two out, and Angel Pagan striding to the plate, Pena made a visit to the mound with the intention of going to the bullpen.

"When I walked over to the mound, I went over to take [Deduno] out of the game," Pena said. "And he said, 'Please do not take me out of this game. I want this guy.' And I said, 'You want it? You've got it.'"

With one of a dynamic array of bullpen arms ready in the person of Octavio Dotel, Pena opted to stay with his starter.

"He made me (change my mind)," Pena said. "And it's something that I never do. Because if this guy would have got hit, I would have kicked him in the rear end."

Deduno did not get kicked in the rear end, but struck out Pagan swinging to end the Puerto Rico threat.

The Dominicans got on the board early when, in the first inning, Puerto Rico went against the old baseball adage that a pitcher shouldn't intentionally walk batters early in the game. The move backfired.

Jose Reyes led off the bottom of the frame with a hard double to right-center. After a sacrifice bunt by Erick Aybar, Puerto Rico opted to intentionally walk Robinson Cano. Two pitches later, cleanup hitter Edwin Encarnacion scorched a bases-clearing double to deep center to give the Dominican Republic a 2-0 lead.

In the bottom of the fifth, the Dominicans added to their lead. With one out, Alejandro De Aza took advantage of the slick infield with a picture-perfect bunt single up the third-base line. De Aza advanced to second with some creative base-running on a groundball off the bat of Reyes. It was a slow chopper to second, and Puerto Rico second baseman Irvin Falu corralled it ahead of the closing base runner. But De Aza stopped, forcing Falu to make a decision. With a sure out in front of him, Falu opted to take the out at first. As a result, De Aza cruised in to second, then later scored on an Aybar double to cap the night's scoring.

The Dominican bullpen took over from there, parading Dotel, Pedro Strop, and Santiago Casilla for an inning each, before turning to Fernando Rodney to close it with his seventh save of the WBC.

Dominican Republic second baseman Robinson Cano earned tournament MVP honors. The four-time Silver Slugger hit .469 in WBC play, and led the tournament with 25 total bases.

"Tonight we're going to celebrate. Tomorrow we're going to celebrate. And Thursday we'll worry about spring training," Cano said.

Pagan was all smiles after the game as well, and tipped his cap to his fellow Caribbean team.

"[The two teams] are very competitive," Pagan said. "We go out there and try to win. Obviously Latin people, we have that spice. We like to compete. But nothing bad against the other team. We just go out there and play hard for our team, for our country ... and they were the best man tonight. So they deserve it."