Huelga Memorial Tournament Proves Some Known Baseball Truisms

by Peter C. Bjarkman

June 12, 2008

One opening round game remains in Huelga tournament play before weekend playoff action decides an eventual tournament title that almost certain to be claimed by one of the equally balanced Cuban squads. An early six o’clock Friday evening start in Havana’s Latin American Stadium between front-runner Cuba Red and the winless Venezuelans will determine little more than the match-ups and venues for Saturday’s semi-final doubleheader games in San José and Havana. An expected fifth triumph for Juan Castro’s Rojos will clinch the top spot over the rival Blues and places the Red team in Latin American Stadium on Saturday night. This would also mean a Saturday afternoon pairing at Nelson Fernández Stadium between Carlos Marti’s Azules and the pesky and rapidly improving Puerto Rico unit managed by Efrain García. Saturday losers will square off in Havana Sunday morning (11 am) for third place, with the two semifinal winners taking the field in mid-afternoon (3 pm) for the nationally televised championship match.

Yoennis Céspedes
According to Peter C. Bjarkman, Yoennis Céspedes should be included in the Cuban National Team to the Olympics Games this summer in Beijing.
A rematch of Red and Blue for the title bragging rights seems a foregone conclusion, as it has all week. Wednesday’s day-night doubleheader action, however, was clearly enough to demonstrate the indelible diamond wisdom that all games are decided on the field alone and nothing is ever resolved on paper or in hot-stove speculations. Both Cuban teams struggled against surprisingly strong opposition during yesterday’s games, which offered further evidence that a single-game uprising can always potentially upset the apple cart within a single-loss elimination format adopted in international championship play-off rounds. A clutch late-inning hit or surprising two-or-three-inning stellar relief stint might well leave either or both of the Cuban squads hanging their heads in embarrassment before the ninth Huelga tournament is history. Both Cuban squads were nearly neutralized on Wednesday by some superior opposition mound work as what started out to be a strictly one-sided round-robin suddenly turned into a most entertaining and competitive series.

In San José de Las Lajas yesterday afternoon a shaky opening performance by southpaw Eriel Sánchez in the bottom of the first put Cuba Red in a 3-0 hole at the outset and set the stage for a long rain-plagued afternoon of surprising and nail-biting competition. The uprising was aided by a throwing error when catcher Rolando Meriño unwisely attempted to pick a runner off third base. Cuba bounced back with four runs in the top of the third when Ronnie Mustelier opened with a homer into the trees beyond the left field wall, Rolando Meriño doubled on the heels of an Urgellés walk and Gourriel single, and Alexei Bell drove home the tie-breaker with his second game-winning hit against the ill-starred Puerto Ricans. After another single by Céspedes, Cuba Red seemed poised for a big knockout inning against laboring starter William Vázquez until DH Eriel Sánchez wrapped into a rally-killing double play.

Heavy thunder storms rolled in after only three frames and resulted in a 20-minute rain delay during the bottom of the third. Upon resumption of play, Cuban bats were shut down for the remainder of the rain-plagued afternoon as Puerto Rican relievers Alexander Woodson, Melvin Pizarro and Angle García strung together successful stints. But the story of this game in the end was the answering Cuban relief work by veteran stalwards Pedro Lazo and Yulieski González. Lazo completely tamed Borinquen bats in the middle frames and González was even more brilliant on his home field as the closer, striking out eight in the three final innings to preserve the shaky victory.

Rain also played a role in the equally tight and entertaining evening match in Latin American Stadium. Heavy pre-game thunder showers delayed the start by forty minutes and kept the crowd to a minimum for the locally televised game. Once again pitching was the story in what had been expected to be a one-sided game between the tournament front runner and tail-ender. Both squads remained hitless through the first half of the match with Cuba Blue’s Leonis Martín finally breaking the string of silent bats in the bottom of the fifth. Starter Norge Luis Vera (4.0 innings) and reliever Ismel Jiménez kept the Venezuelans hitless until the top of the eighth, but in that frame the visitors parlayed a single, walk, error and successful squeeze bunt into the ice-breaking lead run. But the Blues would bounce back in the bottom of the frame to salt the game away with a three-run uprising of their own sparked by singles from Yadil Mujica and Leonis Martin and a ringing double off the bat of Michel Enríquez. Osmani Urrutia singled home the final insurance tally. Alberto Bicet worked the final one-plus innings and picked up the pitching victory.

Two tried and true baseball platitudes were underscored in spades on the field during yesterday’s most intriguing day of Huelga tournament action. The first was that no game is certain in international play, any more than it is in any baseball match from little to big league levels. Even the weakest slumping team can string together a surprising and upsetting one-night outing—usually on the strength of the artful mound work of a single pitcher or two. Which leads to the second truism that in baseball effective pitching almost always tames heavy hitting. If skeptics yesterday might have been depressed by the inability of both Cuban crack line-ups to produce runs against seemingly weak opposition, island fans can certainly find renewed hope in the several clutch mound performances by their own veteran forces. The Puerto Rican line-up of former minor leaguers does indeed feature some experienced and weighty bats (like those of César Crespo, Pedro López and Juan Medina) that have been honed against professional hurling. Team Cuba’s success in Haarlem and Beijing will certainly come as much as anything else from solid mound work from the likes of Norge Vera, Pedro Lazo and Yulieski González, and all have been relentlessly impressive throughout the week. Yulieski González, coming off a brilliant 15-0 Cuban League campaign, has been especially masterful with his cool demeanor and tournament-leading 15 Ks in 6.1 total innings on the hill.

Tournament Standings (thru Wednesday, June 11)

Cuba Blue (5-1), Cuba Red (4-1), Puerto Rico (2-4), Venezuela (0-5)

Tournament Leaders in Batting (thru Tuesday, June 10)

BA: Ariel Pestano (Cuba Blue) .600 (10 AB, 6 H)

Runs: Michel Enríquez, Alex Malleta, Alfredo Despaigne (Cuba Blue) 6

Hits: César Crespo (Puerto Rico) 11

Doubles: Ariel Pestano, Alex Malleta (Cuba Blue) 3

Triples: Yoennis Céspedes (Cuba Red), Humberto Espinoza (Venezuela) 1

HR: Alexei Bell (Cuba Red) 3

Slugging: Ariel Pestano (Cuba Blue) 1.200

RBI: Ariel Pestano, Yosvany Peraza, Alfredo Despaigne (Cuba Blue) 6

Walks: Leonis Martin (Cuba Blue) 5

Steals: Pedro López (Puerto Rico) 3

Tournament Leaders in Pitching (thru Tuesday, June 10)

ERA: Aroldis Chapman (Cuba Blue) 0.00 (6.2 innings)

Saves: Angel García (Puerto Rico) 2

Innings: Luis Arroyo (Puerto Rico) 8.1

Strikeouts: Norberto González (Cuba Red), Jesús Yépez (Venezuela) 9

Walks: Ian Rendón (Cuba Blue), Jesús Yépez (Venezuela) 5

Final Note: With the inevitable cuts for Cuba’s Haarlem and Beijing rosters looming on the horizon, this author will go out on a limp here and project this year’s Cuban national team as he sees it at the mid-point of Huelga tournament action. The infield seems the easiest to calculate. Michel Enríquez (third), Eduardo Paret (short), Yulieski Gourriel (second), and Alex Malleta (first) seem to have a stranglehold on the starting slots, with Héctor Olivera the most likely back-up utility man. This would leave Ronnie Mustelier, Luis Navas, José Julio Ruiz, Yoilan Cerce and Yoandy Garlobo home on the sidelines.

The Cuban Olympic Games outfield will most likely be Cepeda in left, Duvergel in center and Bell in right. Urgellés, Céspedes and Despaigne are still locked in a dogfight for what likely will be two reserve slots. Martin has performed well this week but is still a year away (he is also too much of a replica of Giorvis Duvergel). Freddie Cepeda has not played at all in the Huelga tournament (due to a healing leg injury) but the veteran switch-hitter has apparently been promised a slot and will return to action in Haarlem. The one-dimensional if potent Urrutia is truly on the cusp for the DH role, since any of the spare outfielders, or also Eriel Sánchez, could fill than slot while also manning other functions.

The five starting pitchers are likely to be righties Norge Vera, Joder Martínez and either Yadir Pedroso or Yoelkiz Cruz, backed by lefties Yulieski González and Elier Sánchez (although Sánchez has been ailing of late and has not impressed this week). Adiel Palma is on the bubble but may earn a slot via experience alone. Bullpen certainties seem to be Norberto González (lefty), Yunieski Maya (righty), Ismel Jiménez (righty and one of this week’s true bright spots), Vladimir García (right-hander), and of course the veteran closer Pedro Luis Lazo. Luis Migel Rodríguez and Alberto Bicet (also both righties) remain outside possibilities. Vicyohandro Odelín did not overly impress in his single tournament appearance to date (being tattooed for three homers by Puerto Rico) and seems to have fallen by the wayside in the face of a bevy of young replacement mound talent.

The catcher’s slot still goes to Pestano, who has again been brilliant on both offense and defense all week long (he is the tournament’s leading hitter). The powerful Yosvany Peraza is the obvious backup and a solid candidate for the DH role (long owned by Urrutia) when he doesn’t fill in for Pestano. The third slot behind the plate) will likely go to veteran Eriel Sánchez on the strength of versatility with both the glove and bat. The Sancti Spíritus backstop can fill in adequately at first and also DH with effectiveness. Osvaldo Arias and Yenier Bello have both impressed at the plate in their few tournament opportunities but simply can’t compete with the rest of the stellar backstop corps. And the same is true of 38-year-old Santiago play-off MVP Rolando Meriño.

My own starting lineup (and batting order) for opening day in Beijing would be the following:

Giorvis Duvergel-CF

Michel Enríquez-3B

Yulieski Gourriel-2B

Alexander Malleta-1B

Alexei Bell-RF

Frederich Cepeda-LF

Yoennis Céspedes-DH

Ariel Pestano-C

Eduardo Paret-SS

Yulieski González-P



Havana, Cuba

June 12, 2008

Peter C. Bjarkman’s analyses of Cuban baseball can also be followed on his website at www.bjarkman.com, on his personal blog at www.bjarkmanlatinobaseball.mlblogs.com, and on the Cuban League site found at www.radiococo.cu (English-language page). His new book entitled Who’s Who in Cuban Baseball, 1962-2007 will be published by McFarland at the end of the coming year.