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Cuba Debuts Big Bats as Play Opens in Spain and Other European Venues
by Peter C. Bjarkman
Special for www.baseballdecuba.com
The good news so far is that Team Cuba opened a long-anticipated 2009 crusade to recapture its often-held World Cup title with a series of memorable offensive explosions this past week in Barcelona. In the process the 25-time IBAF World Cup winners dramatically underscored their pre-tournament status as one of this year’s clear-cut gold medal favorites. A pair of 10-run outbursts against Puerto and South Africa were marked by an impressive total of nine round trippers, six alone coming in the noisy Friday afternoon match with South Africa. Gourriel (2), Despaigne (2), Abreu, Olivera, Enríquez, Cepeda and Pestano all took part in a three-day island power display serving to suggest that this current highly billed lineup would be everything it was hyped to be, as well as a match for numerous great Cuban clubs of the past. If there was any bad news it was that the trio of entertaining games staged in Barcelona’s cozy Carlos de Rozas Stadium (site of Cuba’s 1992 Olympic triumph) also did not pass without some rough spots to dull the excitement in the Cuban camp. Several bullpen melt downs on the heels of Norge Vera’s smooth opening night masterpiece were enough to raise a few serious concerns about the widely forecast certainty of Cuba’s dominance over this year’s 22-team field. Cuban pitching was in large part brilliant but occasionally also more than a bit porous.
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Miguel Alfredo récords one of his near-récord ten straight strikeouts versus South Africa. |
In the South Africa match, for starters, Miguel Alfredo González flashed occasional brilliance for five innings in his first major international test, récording a near-récord ten straight strikeouts that narrowly missed equaling a long-standing World Cup récord (of 11 by future big-leaguer Burt Hooton back in 1970 at Cartagena). Miguel Alfredo’s outing was arguably the best single strikeout performance in Cuban national team annals. The Habana Province post-season MVP faltered in the sixth, however, and was roughed up for three hits and four runs before Pedro Lazo arrived to put out the smoldering fire. Maikel Folch also opened well for Lombillo a day later; yet without much offensive support against Spanish southpaw starter Ivan Granados, Folch fell behind 2-0 before departing in the fifth. Three Cuban relievers—Jonder Martínez, Yadier Pedroso, and Vladimir García—all failed to slam the door on a pesky Spanish lineup that rebounded after a 3-run Cuban rally to once again seize a 4-3 advantage in the seventh. Spain’s go-ahead runs came in truly ugly fashion off García via a bases-loaded walk followed by a hit batsman. Again trailing by a single tally entering the bottom of the eighth, Cuba suddenly risked squandering not only the number one slot in Pool B but also a resulting advantageous seeding for Holland round-two play. Fortunately for the home camp, it is indeed difficult to hold so many heavy Cuban bats entirely in check throughout any entire nine-inning contest. And eventually a temporarily dormant Cuban attack finally if belatedly stepped up to save the day.
The true Barcelona fireworks thus came in Cuba’s home half of the eighth frame and they came with shocking suddenness in the form of one of the most memorable and bizarre home runs during a full half-century modern-era of Cuban baseball history. With runners planted on third (Céspedes) and first (Borrero) and only one down, manager Lombillo sent Yosvany Peraza into the fray as a pinch hitter for Ariel Pestano. Peraza had once before delivered dramatically in a nearly identical spot against Australia during the recent World Baseball Classic back in March; thus even the most diehard supporter could hardly have expected lightening to strike twice. But it indeed did when Peraza lifted a towering fly to the deepest point in center, the ball striking the top of the fence before caroming out of the park and sending a stadium full of Cuban supporters into a near frenzy. But that was hardly the end of the story. Ariel Borrero had reached second before he lost sight of the ball as it bounced above the wall; thinking the blast might have actually been caught, Borrero surprisingly hesitated and then turned in apparent confusion back toward first just as Peraza passed him a few strides from the keystone bag. USA umpire Scott Higgins immediately made the correct call, signaling that Borrero was out for his base-running infraction. Peraza continued to circle the bases with a three-run homer that had now been turned into only a two-run affair. That single lost run would not in the end cost Cuba the game, but it may well have if the Spanish had been able to rally yet again against Vladimir García in the ninth.
Peraza’s incredible “game winner” inevitably left several intriguing foot notes in its wake. The Pinar slugger now stands as the only player ever to stroke game-winning pinch-hit homers in his first-ever at-bats in both the World baseball Classic and the IBAF World Cup. The play itself will long be rehearsed and debated by every island “hot corner” gathering. Peraza maintained in a post-game press conference that he was hardly at fault since his responsibility in rounding the bases at the moment was to keep track of the flight of the ball and not the other base runners. Umpire Scott Higgins spoke with me after the contest and admitted that in his near-two-decade career he had not seen such a play transpire in such game-deciding circumstances. The Peraza homer also set off repeated complaints (some reaching this writer via email) that the rotund slugger should indeed be featured in Cuba’s everyday starting lineup. On this latter point I am not at all in agreement. Yosvany Peraza hits a fastball with authority but is most effective when opposing pitchers (especially seasoned pros) have not seen him a second or third time and thus located his weakness (breaking balls off the outside of the plate). He remains a most valuable weapon off the bench and seems to have already found his ideal niche on a ballclub crammed with so many other proven sluggers.
Peraza’s strange blast and the other eleven team homers (in the first four games) aside, it is Cuban pitching that has remained the main theme so far on this unfolding European sojourn. And if pitching is the key to Cuba’s continued successes here in Holland and Italy, the INDER brain trust has to be sufficiently pleased with what has transpired so far. Freddy Asiel has been most impressive in both his one Italian tune-up (the title-clinching game of Italian Baseball Week) and his debut World Cup stint. Miguel Alfredo already owns a memorable World Cup strikeout string of major proportions. Folch has been solid in two appearances, and Lazo is throwing with the authority if not the speed of five years back. Almost lost as well in the opening night romp over Puerto Rico was the brilliant mound outing turned in by veteran ace Norge Vera. Vera breezed seemingly without strain against a solid Puerto Rican line-up that features such former big leaguers as Alex Cintron, Ruben Gotay, José Valentin, Luis Matos and Miguel Negrón. In four World Cup games so far Cuba has already logged two complete-game shutout performances. That fact itself has perhaps been the most promising positive signal from first week pool play action.
If the ease of Cuba’s opening victory was perhaps a bit of a surprise, it was hardly the featured headline news during the first two days of opening European pool play. That top headline came in Regensburg, Germany, where the defending-champion Americans were immediately shell-shocked by a Venezuela squad that had looked anything but potent last week in Italy-based warm-ups. Highly-touted American pitching faltered in the late innings and allowed a pair of doom-spelling grand slam homers. Once the high-scoring affair moved into extra-innings the new tie-breaking rule (each half-inning starting with runners stationed at first and second) went into effect and both teams took advantage with a pair of markers in the tenth. In the top of the eleventh Venezuela dealt the unexpected death blow in the form of a two-out, two-strike bases-load blast off the bat of shortstop Dirimo Chavez. It was Chavez who also earlier opened the match versus Cuba during Italian Baseball Week festivities with a round tripper off a delivery from Norge Vera, then pranced around the bases in showboating game-winning fashion. It was a display that in Chavez’s next at-bat (with the appropriate dusting by Vera) led to a bench-clearing near-brawl between the two Caribbean rivals. The ultimate result of Chavez’s long fly in Regensburg would be a surprise second-place pool finish for the defending-champion Americans that significantly reshuffled the expected second-round tournament pairings.
The American opening-game loss may well have major consequences for the tournament’s final round of play. Had round one followed form the Cubans would have been stacked up against the USA, as well as Japan, in the Holland-based Group F second round. This might not have only meant a more difficult task in qualifying for round three at or near to top of the Holland group, but also yet another challenge once the club returned to Italy. The new format for World Club final-round play has the four Holland teams each playing all four teams from the Italian group. After these four contests, the top team in each group will meet in Nettuno for the World Cup title, with the two second place clubs facing off for the bronze medal. There will be no semifinal game, as such, this time around.
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Yosvany Peraza connects with his second dramatic pinch-hit game-winning homer of international play.
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As things have turned out, it now appears that the bracket in Italy will be by far the most competitive, with Mexico, Australia and Canada (the most potent offensive squad in the first week) all following the Americans and Japanese into Group G. One consequence under the new format, of course, is that Cuba can now potentially face either the Americans or Japanese in the grand finale, something that would not have been possible had they all played in the Holland-based round. Not only is Cuba’s path to a first-place Group F standing (and thus a spot in the gold medal game) a bit softer, perhaps, but the prospect of a better showcase finale now looms large. But no team can yet look that far ahead. With the new and somewhat unorthodox format for World Cup play, every win will be important and no game can be taken very lightly. A single early round-two setback for Cuba might well mean an eventual loss of first slot in Group F and thus a ticket to the finals. No team can any longer barely qualify for the championship round and hope to recover with what are now non-existent quarterfinals and semifinals.
Travel stress and weather conditions may also prove to be major factors as the next few weeks of this tournament continue to unfold. This was certainly most evident during Cuba’s round-two opener at Haarlem Sunday evening. Departing early Sunday from Barcelona, the Cuban contingent arrived in The Netherlands less than six hours before they had to take the field for their debut with Great Britain, the fourth (and thus last) third-place finisher coming out of round one in Croatia. If travel fatigue was not enough of an issue, weather conditions for the 8 pm lid lifter at Haarlem’s Pim Mülier Stadium were nothing short of brutal, with the icy temperature dropping to below 40 degrees Fahrenheit shortly after the opening pitch. What might have been expected to be a one-sided slugfest in Cuba’s favor thus quickly turned into a pitching-dominated affair, with a pair of hard-throwing British hurlers (starter Stephen Spragg and reliever Paul Waterman) largely holding Cuba’s normally potent lineup in check until as late as the eighth frame. Cuba’s single early three-run outburst in the bottom of the second—coming on a solo shot off Spragg by Yoennis Céspedes and a follow-up 2-run opposite-field-blast by Ariel Pestano—provided more than the needed margin of victory, but Lombillo’s offensive was otherwise stymied until a second late three-run rally finally put matters out of reach in the bottom of the eighth.
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Cuba’s sluggish hitting against Great Britain hardly proved very costly since rookie Freddy Asiel Alvarez cruised through a complete game shutout that featured nine strikeouts and only a single base on balls. Even if the competition was hardly one of international baseball’s glamour teams, Freddy Asiel’s first outing on a major tournament stage was more than satisfying under the frigid playing conditions. This game also featured yet another notable oddity since it was likely the first World Cup game in decades (if not ever) played without an operating scoreboard. The new state-of-the-art board above the left field fence suffered electrical problems before the opening pitch and was left inoperative for the remainder of the evening. Lack of a visible running score and familiar ball and strike counts added still further to the suffering of the sparse crowd (estimated at less than a thousand) and the beleaguered working press corps.
Cuba’s tighter-than-expected outcomes in their final Barcelona match and their Haarlem debut are probably now generating heated outcries back in Havana, where patience runs thin with anything falling short of outright perfection from the oft-time world champions. Results in other venues, however, are already again signally how unpredictable and full of pitfalls these tournaments can be. Who expected the Americans to fall so early to team Venezuela, or the Japanese to crumble against Nicaragua and then rebound so strongly a night later against the previously undefeated Mexicans in Italy. Cuba notoriously underperforms and seems to play without total concentration against lesser baseball nations, then time after time rises to the occasions against its top rivals. Across the long stretch of a tournament like this one it is never a question of the number of runs by which each game is won, but rather an issue of managing to avoid costly upsets. So far Cuba has done exactly that in the tight games with Spain (a team loaded with USA and Dominican-born professionals) and Great Britain (Ia game played under terrible baseball conditions).
And it is also important to note that as far as crucial tie-breaking rules are concerned, the first standard is fewest runs allowed and not most runs scored. A 1-0 victory actually benefits a ball club in the end far more than, say, a 20-9 romp (since the former means 9 fewer opponent runs allowed). Here again is where Cuba’s pitching over the first week (despite a few minor middle-inning breakdowns) has so far been the team’s most vital asset. Of course a far better line on this team will be gained in the next couple of games when unbeaten Venezuela (the only other 4-0 club left in the entire field) and Group D pool play frontrunner Nicaragua provide more serious immediate challenges.
Peter C. Bjarkman is traveling with Team Cuba across Europe (Spain, The Netherlands, Italy) during September’s IBAF World Cup tournament and reporting regularly with his exclusive columns and articles for www.baseballdecuba.com. Bjarkman’s latest book—Baseball’s Other Big Red Machine: A History of the Cuban National Team (McFarland)—is scheduled for publication in early spring 2010.
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