Five batters on the Dominican Republic squad had at least two hits, with eight of their 12 batters recording at least one hit.
Relief pitcher Seranthony Dominguez got the win. The DR bullpen tossed 8.2 shutout innings, giving up just three hits.
Nicaragua will face the Netherlands (0-1) on March 7th at 12:00 p.m. Eastern time. The Dominican Republic will take on the Netherlands (0-1) at the same time, but a day later, on March 8th.
Recap and highlights
The first five innings of the game were a nail-biter as Nicaragua looked poised to bring about possibly the biggest upset in World Baseball Classic history.
Before recording three straight strikeouts, Dominican starter Christopher Sanchez gave up a single to put runners on first and second with no outs.
Nicaragua's Ismael Munguia would hit an RBI-single to centerfield to score Chase Dawson from second to go up 1-0.
But of course, the bats for the Dominican Republic came out firing right out the gate in the bottom half of the first inning.
After a single from Fernando Tatis Jr., Ketel Marte would bring him home on an RBI double to tie it up 1-1.
Juan Soto would ground out to move Marte over to third before Vladimir Guerrero Jr. would do the same to bring him home to go up 2-1 before the end of the inning.
Tatis would finish the game 2-for-3 with three runs and two walks. Marte finished 1-for-3 with one run and RBI. Soto 2-for-4 with one run, one walk, and one strikeout. Vladdy 1-for-4 with three RBI.
But Nicaragua wouldn't let up after they tacked on two more runs in the second.
The first coming from a Freddy Zamora an RBI double that tied it 2-2, followed by a a Dawson RBI single to go up 3-2 after Soto bobbled the ball in left field.
Unfortunately for Nicaragua, that's where the runs would end for the remainder of the game.
After two scoreless innings, the DR began to unleash their bats on the Nicaragua bullpen.
After an RBI single from Julio Rodriguez to tie it 3-3 in the bottom of the third, Tampa Bay Rays' young star Junior Caminero put the DR up 5-3 with a two-run home run - the first of his WBC career and the first for DR in the tournament.
J-Rod finished the game 3-for-5 with three RBI and one run. Caminero finished 2-for-4 with one home run, one run, and two RBI.
From there, the DR would put up an extra seven runs across in the next two innings, six runs in the seventh inning alone.
After a Vladdy RBI single in the sixth, J-Rod would continue to rake at the plate with his first home run of the tournament in the seventh to put DR up 7-3. In the same inning, Oneil Cruz would launch a three-run home run as well to make it 10-3.
Vladdy and J-Rod both would bring in two more runs in the same inning to eventually put the game to the final score of 12-3.