Who can change history?
Team Cuba will try to fight against what seems like another inevitable collapse.
So, you know Cuba beat Australia again. This time, the 4-3 win gave Cuba its first win in this Premier12 of baseball. Eleven batters were enough, until Yadir Drake came along and hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the third inning with no outs.
Truth be told, it was a bad pitch unmasked. The kind of pitch you can't give to a hitter of Drake's level on a 2-0 count. Left-hander Blake Townsend threw his 73 mph breaking ball in the very middle of the strike zone. You can say it was a slow curveball, a slider or a slow sweeper. Anything. I mean, really, it was just another pitch. And Drake made the sin Townsend had just committed make sense.
I still wonder what outcome Townsend was hoping for after delivering a delicacy with no speed or movement or anything to impress. In turn, I think especially Australian national team manager David Nilsson was not comfortable with Townsend's pitching either. After all, the Cuban batters did not hit any extra bases and left seven runners on base.
Australia opened the game by scoring a two-run rally in the first inning off left-handed starter Dario Sarduy. But then the dominance of right-hander Andy Vargas was key to stopping Australia's offense. Shortstop Robert Glendinning led off the top of the fifth inning with a solo homer and Australia got within 4-3. But then they couldn't score runs against Cuba's bullpen, which featured dominant performances from right-handers Frank Abel Alvarez, Leodan Reyes and closer Raidel Martinez.
The fifth through ninth batters in Australia's lineup combined to go 1-for-18 with nine strikeouts. “We had a lot of opportunities, including the seventh inning when we loaded the bases, but we couldn’t take advantage of it,” Australian manager David Nilsson told BaseballdeCuba after the game. “I think that was the moment that definitely changed the game in Cuba’s favor.”
In the end, the recent history of Cuba vs. Australia games was repeated: Cuba won by a one-run difference.
Australia has now lost five of its last six games against Cuba by one run:
Premier12, 2024: Cuba 4, Australia 3
World Baseball Classic, 2023: Cuba 4, Australia 3
Premier12, 2019: Cuba 4, Australia 3
World Baseball Classic, 2017: Cuba 4, Australia 3
Baseball World Cup, 2011: Cuba 14, Australia 0
World Baseball Classic, 2009: Cuba 5, Australia 4
As you can detail there, three of those results have ended with the same score, 4-3. There's a lot of history there. In the last World Baseball Classic, Yoelkis Guibert's two-run RBI single was the decisive hit for Cuba. In the 2019 Premier12, Cuba won in the 10th inning on a sacrifice fly by Yurisbel Gracial. Two years earlier, in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, a grand slam by Alfredo Despaigne in the bottom of the fifth inning was the key blow against reliever Lachlan Wells.
Remember the 2017 World Baseball Classic? Yes, Cuba's victory was thanks to Yosvany Peraza's game-saving home run in the top of the eighth inning against reliever Rich Thompson. No one treasures more memories, game situations and key moments that have slipped away than Australia's manager David Nilsson.