After coming close to an upset of defending champions Argentina on opening day, Cuba got over the hump and posted their first victory on Sunday at the XVII WBSC Men’s Softball World Cup.
With two runs already scored in the previous innings, Miguel Savigne’s homer sparked the Cuban scoring run to triumph 7-0 against world No. 5 Czech Republic at Rosedale Park.
Cuba took the lead in the game 1-0 that started with Reiner
Vera drawing a walk and moving bases on a passed ball and a ground out from
Roger Rosete, before completing the run from Osvaldo Perez’s triple to the
right field.
Cuba scored the next run on a similar order of play, this time with Luis Dominguez obtaining the walk and progressing to score off Annibal Vaillant's sacrifice hit, Yuri Rodriguez’s ground out and Yesander Rodriguez’s single to the right field.
The Cubans continued to score in the fourth inning with a
series of runs highlighted by Savigne’s homer to centre field, eventually
giving momentum to Perez and Reynaldo Lamote to extend the advantage to 5-0
with two more runs.
The Cuban surge forced the Czechs to make some pitching changes to change the tempo of the game, but the game was stopped moments after due to rain. When play resumed, second reliever Marek Maly threw a wild pitch that put Vera and Castillo in a position to each score a run off Savigne and Perez’s singles, respectively.
While the Czech pitchers could not respond to strong Cuba offense, the latter’s pitchers played a sound game on the mound. Alain Roman took care of the first four innings and Guber Plutin closed the game early, striking out the first three batters in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Quotes: Cuba Head Coach Leonardo Cardenas
We are a team that is very experienced. We
have had many years playing together. We all came from several years playing
the game and we all know each other well.
We were expecting some bad weather here and
are prepared to play in what ever the weather. It was similar to the conditions
we had at the Pan American Games in Peru three years ago. We were ready to face
this challenge.
The win is very good. I do not dwell on
yesterday’s close game. It would have been very useful if we had won but we
fight on. Today was very good though.
It has been very difficult with delays in our travel and some came today and more are still coming – so we will get better and better each day we think.
Czech Republic Head Coach Jaroslav Korcak
It was a tough day. Cuba was better today
and deserved to win.
With the wet weather and the delay, our
pitchers struggled with command which is why we used three of them. But the conditions
were tough and it was hard for all of them and they all struggled with the
strike zone.
Cuba are a really good team. They don’t
show at international events too often, so teams do not have much information
about them. But they are a really good team. They have good hitters, great
pitching and they play great defence. We played a really good team.
Our focus is on the next day. We will do
our best to prepare for the game against USA. That’s all we can do.
