Déjà vu

Cuba faces a great challenge against Korea.

Hey, good morning again! Yeah, well, it's very early. I don't know how you've been coping with following baseball games in Asia, but I seem to be adjusting well. I thought I'd get at least six hours of sleep. In the end, I didn't sleep at all. I started writing at 3:55 AM. So you'll probably get these kinds of opinion and analysis columns pretty early—although that might depend on the time I finally go to bed to get some rest and recuperation.

Either way, I know you're going to enjoy it. Cuba will play Korea this Thursday. It will be a very tough game, especially since Korea lost on Opening Day against Chinese Taipei, which was not expected. Chen Wei-Chen hit a grand slam that led to a six-run rally during the bottom of the second inning. Then, it was a 3-0 game in favor of Korea, but the damage was already done. And, well, the other reason why it will be a tough day is because Cuba really didn't look good at all. “It will be just another game,” my uncle Guillermo used to say. And it is inevitable that I don’t remember it because I enjoyed some early mornings with him when we watched the Cuban team play in the nineties. In a way, I think he is quite right. In baseball anything can happen.

Have a nice morning. Let’s go to baseball!

An expanded version of what we saw yesterday, we will probably see it again today. There are so many ways to win and lose a baseball game, but for more than a decade now, the Cuban national team has not emerged from the same void. The fate in every ballgame seems like Déjà vu. When the lineup has a flash and produces runs, then the pitchers fail to dominate enough. When the starters get quality starts, then the bullpen collapses or the defense fails on routine plays.

If you have watched the Cuban national team play for some time, you will have enough memories of multiple losses. If you remember the previous generation, then you will notice the big differences. Cuba's debut in the Premier12 offered a few more episodes of anguish after the third loss on Opening Day of the tournament.

Yesterday was a mix of everything.

The offense was again inefficient. No one could hit enough to change the fate of the game. Baserunning continues to stand out as the key factor that is missing. The defense made mistakes that provided an opening for the relentless speed of the Dominican runners. The bullpen faltered enough to squander an agonizing lead with two outs in the top of the seventh inning. As I said before, no one could hit.

The odds of winning a game 1-0 in Premier12 history had been 0% before this year. Cuba scored just one run after a brilliant quality outing by left-hander Yoennis Yera. Yera kept the Dominican Republic offense in check. He dominated the first nine batters with 34 pitches—71% of them for strikes. He led off the first five innings by getting the first batter out. Yera struck out five opponents and only one runner reached scoring position—it was Andretty Cordero in the top of the fourth inning, on a throwing error by second baseman Yadil Mujica in an attempt to complete a double play.

Yera finished his six-inning scoreless outing with just three singles allowed. In contrast, he received no offensive support. But worst of all, the Cuban team's lineup was barely able to generate any dangerous situations against the Dominican pitchers. Veteran former MLB pitcher Wily Peralta pitched 5 ⅓ innings and allowed just one run. Cuba needed two singles, a hit batter and a clear passed ball—which was recorded as a wild pitch—to score the game’s only run. Yadir Mujica, who has been the batter with the most RBIs in Team Cuba’s last four events, grounded out to second with the bases loaded.

In the end, Cuba’s lineup went 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position. Of the 15 times they reached two-strike counts, batters struck out seven times. They finished 0-for-11 on two-strike counts, including Alfredo Despaigne’s groundout into a double play that ended the bottom of the seventh inning with runners on first and second and one out.