Cuban team in U-18 World Cup
La Paz, November 8 (JIT)-- Cuba lost by a score of 0 to 9 against Nicaragua on the last day of the elimination group A and saw its aspirations of reaching the super round of the Baja California del Sur 2022 Pan American Baseball U-18 Championship go up in smoke.
Both teams needed a victory to celebrate their advancement, and the Central American team made the party in a seventh chapter that their rivals will long remember as a nightmare.
Left-hander Dario Sarduy had a dream opening for the Island, with only one hit allowed in six innings in which he handed out seven strikeouts, but his teammates were unable to score off Josue Quezada (5.0) and Deybi Castro (2.0).
Several threats took a hit for one reason or another, from a lack of timely connections to an inexplicable failed bunt initiative with men on first and second in the fifth inning.
Disqualified from continuing due to an accumulation of deliveries, Sarduy left the bid tied at zero, and the seventh chapter turned out to be an ordeal for the Cuban reliever.
Jan Ewing Cabrera, Orisbel Borges, Miguel Flores and Daniel Ruiz got a couple of runs apiece. Eduardo Rodriguez got one run, including one driven in by the lapidary home run of starter Melvin Perez.
A total of six hits came as a devastating blow for a Cuban team that also totaled seven, with right fielder Samuel Martí (3) and middle infielder Daniel Díaz (2) as the main producers.
The third and fourth baseman, center fielder Marcos Argudín and catcher Julio Pérez, respectively, were blanked, with the former as the recipient of three of the nine strikeouts of his team, which played at the Arturo C. Nahl stadium.
Dismayed faces and more than one tear in the eye as a sign of sporting shame marked the final scene, in the midst of which mentor Severo Crespo recalled that "in baseball, when you don't make the runs, they make them for you".
He recalled the runners left in scoring positions and the ineffectiveness of those who succeeded Sarduy, to whom he dedicated praise, and declared himself hurt by the failure that left them with a balance of one success and two setbacks, just like Nicaragua, which advanced to the Super Round by the particular result.
The other tickets assigned to group A were won by Mexico (2-1), who also defeated Cuba, and Panama (2-1), who was their victim.
The B group actions will conclude this Tuesday, and it will be then when the orderings for the remainder of the tournament will be made official, with the Cuban team called to play for places seven through nine.
