Cuban baseball saves face in Haarlem

HAVANA, Cuba, July 14 (ACN) Supported by starter Yuen Socarrás’s arm and first baseman Guillermo Avilés, the Granma Alazanes beat Italy 5-1 in the fight for fifth place in the Haarlem Baseball Week tournament.

This was the only victory achieved in this competition by head coach Carlos Martí’s unproductive players, who will return to Cuba with a single win and five losses marked by a poor record of 28 innings without scoring and three shutouts in a row.

Socarrás pitched 6.1 innings and allowed six singles and one run—batted in by Noel González, a Cuban who became a naturalized Italian—and was replaced by Carlos Santana, a reliever who forced the only hitter he faced to ground into a double play.

Avilés, in turn, was in a roll, hitting three singles and batting in three of the Alazanes’ five runs.

Cuba thus got even with Italy, to which it had lost 0-2 in the qualifying round. The other defeats were against the Netherlands (1-5), Japan (3-4), the United States (0-2) and Curaçao (0-1).