In their return to the World Baseball Classics after 14 years of absence, Panama did not have an easy debut, as they had to face Chinese Taipei at their Taichung grounds, in front of more than 15,000 Asian fans. However, the istmeños responded to the height of the circumstances and opened with a resounding victory of 12 runs by 5 in the group Athe first they achieve in the history of the tournament.
The canaleros, who had lost their five previous games in the Clásicos, finally activated the box for victories with a display of 14 hits against eight local pitchers. The Taiwanese could not control the tremendous thrust of the gang led by Luis Ortiz, led by Jonathan Arauz (tubey and three RBIs), Erasmo Caballero (two RBIs) and Jahdiel Santamaría (pair of tubeys and two RBIs).
Panama presented credentials to seek a historic qualification to the second round of the Classic, although its production was limited to only three episodes. In the fourth inning they made five runs, in the sixth they raised the stop by going through the register six times and completed the dozen scores with one more in the seventh.
In this way, Panama left its chain of consecutive scoreless innings in the World Classics at 29, the longest in the history of the tournament. The streak began against Cuba precisely on March 8, 2006, exactly 17 years ago today.
On that day, the canaleros could not make runs for Yadel Martí at the end of an electrifying game that was defined in 11 episodes. The right-hander from Havana took over for Yuniesky Maya and withdrew Freddy Herrera, Olmedo Saenz and Carlos Lee for the last outs of the duel by his order.
Two days later, at the Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Panama was unable to bill the Netherlands any runs, whose pitcher Shairon Martis scored the first and only no hit no run in the history of the Classics. In that match, the Europeans triumphed with a 10-0 score, so the actions ended in seven innings with a knockout score.
In 2009, during the second edition of the Classic, Panama only played two games against Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, in which they received two zero nines. The streak then extended to 26 innings without scoring runs, but it stopped there for 14 years, as the Isthmians did not qualify for the 2013 and 2017 editions.
In this period of absence, no other team could even come close to Panama’s fatal streak, the longest in the history of the event. At the start of this Clásico, the canaleros added another three episodes to the scoring drought, which finally ended in 29 innings when Rubén Tejada hit a double and Luis Castillo drove him in the fourth chapter of the duel against Taipei. Historic hit!
From there, the Panamanians ground big and showed that they can be an uncomfortable rival in the Taichhung key, one of the most even in the Classic with the presence of the Netherlands, Cuba, Taipei and Italy.
However, they must calibrate their pitching, since the hosts hit 13 rockets to six Panamanian pitchers, including the first home run of this Classic to the account of Nien-Ting Wu. Now the team from the isthmus will face the Netherlands in an undefeated duel reserved for this March 9 in Taipei.
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