Seoul (Korea). One day after a shutout over Italy, Panama also didn’t have any trouble with their second European opponent in Group B at the XXV IBAF 18U Baseball World Championship. They moved past the Czech Republic 6-2 on Saturday evening, claiming their second win of the tournament. The Czech squad again played a respectable game – like they did in their opener against Chinese Taipei – but in the end had to settle for their second loss.
It was another dominant pitching performance by Panama. Peter Pineda allowed just one hit through the first six innings and gave up just one run on four hits and two walks in seven frames overall. He struck out nine for the win. Jose Luis Gonzalez and Ronal Mendez closed it out to seal the victory.
They got run support from the start. RBI singles by Victor Moscotte and Farjat Maloff gave Panama an early 2-0 lead after two innings. Anthony Diaz tripled home another run in the fourth. They added three more runs until the end thanks to RBI singles by Marloff and Ivan Pimentel, as well as a sac fly by Diaz. The later was 3-for-3 overall with a sac fly, two runs scored and two RBI. Jean Carlos Ho scored twice.
The Czech Republic needed until the seventh to bring their first run to the board. Three consecutive singles by Michal Vykoukal, Ondrej Matko and Martin Muzik ended their scoreless drought in the tournament after 16 innings. In the ninth Ivan Aubrecht scored a second run on an infield single by Vykoukal. Southpaw Jan Novak, an attendee of the MLB European Academy, got charged with the loss, surrendering seven hits, five runs (3 ER) and two base on balls in 5 1/3 innings.
