U-23 baseball team suffers its third defeat in the World Cup

Havana, October 17 (RHC) - The Cuban under-23 team competing in the IV Baseball World Cup in Taiwan suffered its third defeat in a row early Monday morning when it lost to the Netherlands with a final score of 3-2.

Despite showing some offensive improvement, Alain Alvarez's men could not avoid their third loss in a row, a result that leaves them with remote options of a ticket to the super round, with only two games left to conclude their qualifying schedule.

After conceding 21 consecutive zeroes if we count the last game of the Pan American qualifier, the Cubans broke the jinx and rattled the register on a couple of occasions in the same opening chapter.

A team that had barely connected five hits in the two previous games, hit three in that inning, but only for a few moments.

A single by Cristhian Hidalgo and a single by Yuri Fernandez, who was the third hitter of the day, set the stage for Guillermo Garcia to tow them in with a single to center field.

But starter Roberto Hernández could not maintain the minimal lead and left the mound in the third inning after giving away a couple of tickets and accepting two hits.

The final inning came in the sixth inning when the team from the land of the tulips scored one on the count of reliever Leodán Reyes.

This Monday at 10:00 pm, the Cuban national team will face Mexico, in a game where they must win to keep their hopes of qualifying to the next stage.

On Sunday, the Cuban national team had fallen against South Korea, with a 4x0 score, in a dramatic match that the Asians decided in the seventh and last inning with a home run with the house full.