World Baseball Classic predictions, Shohei Ohtani’s grand slam & previewing the weekend slate

The 2026 edition of the World Baseball Classic is off and running, with a few games of pool play already in the books, including Team Japan mercy-ruling Team Chinese Taipei following a historic second inning. With Shohei Ohtani hitting a grand slam and Japan scoring 10 runs, the defending WBC champs are putting all challengers officially on notice.

On this episode of Baseball Bar-B-Cast, Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman talk about the opening games, including Yoshinobu Yamamoto picking up where he left off last October and Team Australia getting off to a hot 2–0 start in Pool C. They then preview all the other games set to take place this weekend, including Team USA kicking off their quest for gold tonight and make their picks for who will win the whole tournament.

Later, Jake and Jordan talk about the Texas Rangers signing veteran Andrew McCutchen to a MiLB deal after some weirdness with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Houston Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña being out for a few weeks with a fractured finger. They then make their picks for this week’s edition of The Good, The Bad & The Uggla, which includes the lame WBC uniforms and the incredible scenes from Team Dominican Republic’s exhibition game in the DR.

1:35 – The Opener: Ohtani, Yamamoto lead Japan in win
9:59 – Recapping other opening WBC games
31:07 – Previewing weekend WBC slate
40:04 – WBC predictions
50:49 – Around the League: McCutchen to Rangers
56:12 – Jeremy Peña is injured
57:50 – The Good, The Bad & The Uggla

Subscribe to Baseball Bar-B-Cast on your favorite podcast app:

🎧 Apple Podcasts

🎧 Spotify

🖥️ YouTube

📢 Check out the Yahoo Sports podcast network or yahoosports.tv

And check out Jake, Jordan & the show on X or Instagram:

🌤️ @CespedesBBQ: https://bsky.app/profile/cespedesbbq.bsky.social

🐦 @CespedesBBQ: https://x.com/CespedesBBQ

📷 @CespedesBBQ: https://www.instagram.com/cespedesbbq

⚾ @Jake_Mintz: https://x.com/Jake_Mintz

🧢 @J_Shusterman: https://x.com/j_shusterman_