MIAMI, United States. — The Farmers team, representing Cuba in the 2023 Caribbean Series, defeated the Curacao Wildcats on Thursday in their debut in the tournament, which takes place in Venezuela.
The match —played at the Forum La Guaira stadium— extended to 10 innings and ended with a score of three runs to one. The decisive score for the Cubans came with an unstoppable hit to the right field by Guillermo Avilés, who drove in Rafael Viñales, in second thanks to the courtesy hitter rule, which places a man in second base during extra innings.
With the 2-1 clash, the Cubans managed to fill the bases for tickets to Denis Laza and Osvaldo Abreu. The third would then come, for another ticket from reliever Shairon Martis to Yunieski Larduet.
The cast of Curaçao had opened the scoring at the bottom of the fifth inning after linking hits by Jonathan Schoop and Andrelton Simmons, a sacrifice fly and another groundout by Darren Seferina against the shipments of Cuban starter César García, dominant in seven innings of performance. The Cuban starter prescribed five strikeouts and gave away three walks.
Agricultores tied the game in the eighth inning on a home run by Andrés de la Cruz, who had missed in his previous three at-bats.
In accordance with cubadebateAndrés de la Cruz’s home run, the first to be connected in this edition of the Caribbean Series, was Cuba’s 55th in the history of these competitions.
“Since their return in 2014, there have been 14, and only in the 2016 and 2019 editions did the batters leave without hitting these hits,” the official media highlighted about the production of home runs by the Antillean teams in these contests.
The best hitter for Cuba was catcher Yosvani Alarcón, who hit three hits in four at-bats.
The second presentation of Agricultores, representative of eastern Cuba, will be this Friday at 2:30 pm (local time) against the Tigres de Licey, from the Dominican Republic.
