Baseball
Major League veterans Brian Bogusevic and Casey Kotchman both hit impressively long home runs and 5 pitchers combined on a 6-hit shutout as the U.S. Pan-American Men's Baseball Team defeated Cuba, 4-0, on the 2nd day of the Americas Baseball Festival at the USA Baseball National Training Complex on Tuesday.
Team USA will close out the training portion of its schedule with a 10 a.m. tilt against the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team on Wednesday. The squad will then travel to Toronto, Ontario, where it will compete in the Pan-American Games (baseball competition to be held in Ajax), July 10th to 19th.
Bogusevic (Oak Lawn, Ill. -Philadelphia Phillies) put the first tallies on the scoreboard in the bottom of the first, launching a 2-0 offering the other way for a two-run bomb that landed halfway up the berm in left-center.
Kotchman (St. Petersburg, Fla. -Kansas City Royals) then bookended the scoring with a mammoth moonshot just inside the right-field foul pole that went for a solo home run in the bottom of the 8th. Tyler Pastornicky (Bradenton, Fla. -Texas Rangers) also had a solid day at the plate, going 2-for-2 with a run scored in the victory.
On the mound, Jake Thompson (Rockwall, Texas -Texas Rangers) started and fired three near-perfect innings, striking out 3 and taking advantage of 1 of 3 Team USA double plays on the day to face the minimum 9 batters during his stint.
Casey Coleman (Fort Myers, Fla. -Kansas City Royals) and Brian Ellington (Gainesville, Fla. -Miami Marlins) twirled two shutout innings each before Buddy Baumann (Chicago, Ill. -Kansas City Royals) and Paul Sewald (Las Vegas, Nev. -New York Mets) closed out the contest with 1 scoreless inning apiece.
Yoriba Borroto led Cuba offensively with a 2-for-4 effort while Frederich Cepeda had a double and drew 2 walks on the day.
Toronto 2015
With the game of Cuba and US water polo teams --of both genders--, Cuba will begin tomorrow its performance in the Pan-American Games in Toronto, Canada.
The Cuban team will try to make a good performance against one of the favorite teams to vie for the title in the Atos Markham Pan-Am/Parapan Am Center of Toronto.
A day later, the men's squad of the island will face Argentina and Saturday, Ecuador on group one. That same day, the female team will face Mexico.
Veteran Ernesto Cisneros, 41, will participate for the 4th time as regular player in this continental competition since Winnipeg-1999 in Canada, except for Santo Domingo Pan-American Games-2003, an event that was not attended by the Cuban water polo team.
Since the first edition of the Games in Buenos Aires-1951, Cuban male squad has accumulated 1 gold, 5 silver and 2 bronze medals while the ladies have won a medal of each color since their debut in Winnipeg-1999.
Field Hockey
Lianet Castillo was the most valuable player of the team of field hockey in the province of Camaguey to register 3 of the 5 goals that gave them the victory against Havana's team in the School National Games based in the city of Ciego de Avila.
ODEPA Remembers Legacy of Cuban Reynaldo González
The Pan-American Sports Organization remembered today in the inauguration of its general assembly the legacy of late Cuban Reynaldo Gonzalez.
"A great friend has gone, I would like to take this opportunity when all the Olympic family is gathered to pay tribute to Reynaldo Gonzalez Lopez," said German Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee.
González, who was a member of IOC since 1995 and also Executive Secretary of ODEPA, died at 66 in Mexico City, on Sunday.
The two-day meeting of ODEPA will discuss the final preparations for the Pan-American Games of Toronto, scheduled to start on July 10th.
The president of the Olympic Committee of Canada, Marcel Aubut, also promised "spectacular" games, the greatest sports event ever in Canada."
