The second round of the World Baseball Classic is underway. Johan Santana is facing Cuba in the top of the first. Pitchers can throw 80 pitches before they must be removed in this round.
Update: Santana gets the side easily in the first, striking out Cuban Star Gourriel to end the inning. Santana threw 15 pitches, 10 for strikes.
Update: Venezuela works Cuban pitcher Marti for 25 pitches, but just get an Abreu walk and stolen base out of it. It’s scoreless at the end of one.
Update: Yoandy Garlobo doubles with one out in the second for the first hit of the game.
Update: Cuba takes a 1-0 lead. Vizquel tried to get the third out at third, but Cabrera wasn’t ready. The next batter, Ariel Borrero, singles in the runner for the early lead.
Update: That’s all they get. Cuba leads 1-0 going to the bottom of the second.
Update: They are through four innings, and nothing’s changed. Marti is throwing a no-hitter for Cuba, allowing three walks while striking out four.
Update: Magglio Ordonez and Ramon Hernandez start the fifth with the first two singles of the game for Venezuela. The Cubans are going to the bullpen, bringing in the pitcher who was supposed to start the game, Pedro Luis Lazo.
Update: Alfonzo bunts. Lazo goes for the out at third and bobbles the ball. That loads the bases for Endy Chavez.
Update: Chavez hits a short fly to left field. The runners hold.
Update: Vizquel also flies to shallow left! Guillen stands between Venezuela and a wasted opportunity.
Update: Guillen strikes out. A nice piece of pitching by Lazo, and Venezuela is unable to take advantage of a golden opportunity. The score remains Cuba 1, Venezuela 0 after five innings.
Update: Carrara replaces Santana. Johan threw 67 pitches, walked none and struck out five. That’s the Johan we know and love.
Update: A walk, a steal and single lead to a second run for Cuba. So far, Cuba’s taken advantage of every opportunity in this game.
Update: From the radio broadcast, it sounds like Vizquel made too bad plays in a row. He bobbled one ball, losing it in his shirt, then bobbled another and couldn’t make a relay on a double play. No errors charged on either play, but that’s not the Vizquel we’re used to.
And it hurt as Frederich Cepeda hits a three-run homer. Cuba now leads 5-0 in the bottom of the sixth.
Update: Back to back home runs makes the score 6-0. Carrara is coming out of the game for Venezuela.
Update: The Cubans make it 7-0 in the top of the seventh, but Endy Chavez comes up with a runner on in the bottom of the inning and launches a 2-run shot. It’s now 7-2 Cuba.
Update: They’re going to the bottom of the ninth with the score still 7-2. Japan and the United States are about to get underway in Anaheim.
Update: Ramon Hernandez walks with one out to keep hope alive in Venezuela.
Update: Alfonzo makes the second out. It’s up to Endy Chavez.
Update: Chavez grounds out to end the game. Cuba wins 7-2.
Apart from Santana’s pitching, the Venezuelan team didn’t execute at bat, on the mound or in the field. miscues by Vizquel of all people led to the first six runs.
The Cuban pitchers walked 5 and struck out 7, but allowed just five hits. The walks did not harm them. Cuba takes a big game.
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Let’s talk about “sportsmanship”. Under the guise of a “sportsmanship” rule people holding signs in protest of the Cuban dictator are being relieved of those signs. But at the same time the Cuban team has been permitted to playe shenanigans with it’s line-up. Before their first game against Panama they were supposed to submit their lineup card 30 mins before first pitch. But then they submitted two more lineup cards with changes culminating with the final one right before first pitch which the Cuban team delayed by more than 5 minutes. Now against Venezuela they announced one starting pitcher and actually started another. Why do we have to put up with their flouting of the rules of the tournament? Oh that’s right because the show must go on no matter how much of our dignity (and out rights) we have to give up. Way to go MLB!
That’s Cuba for you, the great imperialist… I’m suprised the United States hasn’t crumbled into anarchy after the events of this last week.
my money is on Cuba vs USA in the championship
If the Pastors For Peace really want to do something worthwhile, they should take a boat out into international waters and try to rescue the poor souls fleeing from Cuba before they are shot by Castro’s patrols or, at best, retreived and thrown in the Cuban gulag. Until they are willing to do that, they are little more than useful idiots and flunkies for Fidel.
People people…..I wish at the end it would be USA v. Cuba, the reason people are saying negative things about the Cuban team now is because they are scare that they might actually win ….and then the USA won’t know where to hid it’s face. (by the way I am NOt CUBAN)–but I do wish them luck because they are the under dogs’ of this game they don’t famous names and they unlike USA players play for the love of the game not for the money because they only get pay about $25.00 a month….So they LOVE the game……that is what makes them great —-Our players forget about that and end up been guided by the $$$$ sign
Of course, if they didn’t want to play, Castro and his thugs would force them to.
“The love of the game?” So that’s the euphemism we’re using for forced labor now? I’m sure all those folks sent to re-education camps are doing it for the love of learning, or the love of harvesting sugarcane.
Here’s an experiment: Let the Cuban players make a free choice! Play “for the love of the game” for Castro, or come to the USA and play in the major leagues. Let’s see how many decide to play “for the love of the game” then.
I AM a Cuban-American and I can tell you that the love of the game argument is laughable. Do they love the game, sure. They love the game for the same reasons almost all players love the game. It’s a fun sport to play.
But you can also add to that the fact that within Cuba those players are afforded things that the rest of the population isn’t. Of course the same is true here in the US except that the government doesn’t determine what anybody in the country can earn or what career they should pursue etc.
Bottom line is that these players get about about as much privilege as the Cuban communist system can give. Why? Well that’s the way communist countries are. For them its about the propaganda value in pumping up Cuba’s standing in the world, just like the old USSR.
Perhaps those Cuban players would like to go out for a night on the town in San Juan and mix with the fans. Too bad they are prisoners in their own hotel rooms. They may be underdogs because they aren’t big leaguers but these guys are professional, make no mistake about it.
And by the way look at the bodies on those guys and then look at what regular cubans look like at therealcuba.com then you’ll see what these guys “love” about baseball.
And lastly the idea that they play for the love of the game and not money assumes that they have a choice in the matter. Even if a guy wants to defect and finds an opportunity to do so by evading the Cuban state security apparatus, he has to think twice about abandoning his family in a police state where they will suffer for his “crime against the revolution”. Just ask Jose Contreras whose wife and kids were basically held hostage in Cuba after his defection. They finally paid a smuggler to get them out. I guess Contreras doesn’t “love” the game as much as those other guys.
I never knew there were so many people that are so ignorant about the Cuban reality.
Santana goes five innings, gives up one run that he really shouldn’t have been charged with, and takes the loss because a) the bullpen blew up and b) he got no run support. I suspect that all sounded familiar.
conductor,
you have a lot of valid points, however i believe the site you gave the link to is mostly alpha 66 style propoganda…i just have a hard time really believing things that cuban americans tell me (especially ones in miami) because they are so polarized against castro…im not saying he’s a great guy or anything, but i think many cuban-americans use propoganda just as much as castro…