Cuba finally lost a game and surprisingly Holland managed to defeat Taiwan and make it to the finals. Now the two teams will play today for the trophy three times before this one. "> Cuba finally lost a game and surprisingly Holland managed to defeat Taiwan and make it to the finals. Now the two teams will play today for the trophy three times before this one. ">

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  • 07 / 12 / 2009

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Round-robin pool play wrapped up today in Rotterdam with Cuba—a surprise 2-1 loser to last-place Japan—surrendering its undefeated overall record and thus finishing qualifying play with an still-impressive 7-1-1 ledger. In far more crucial evening action the slow-starting but fast-finishing host Netherlands ball club captured a last-minute slot in the finals with a dramatic come-from-behind 6-5 triumph over spunky Chinese Taipei.

The host Dutch will now enter Sunday’s final showdown as the decided underdog against a heavily favored Caribbean island squad coached by Roger Machado. Cuba will be seeking its fourth straight World Port crown while the Dutch hope to claim their first title in this event since 1999 (when Cuba itself was not surprisingly the tournament runner-up).

In Saturday afternoon’s essentially meaningless opener Machado’s perhaps-overly-relaxed ball club ran into the talented right arm deliveries of diminutive Syogo Suenaga, the Teikyo University ace who had already one week earlier hurled the tournament’s only complete game in the form of a 6-0 whitewashing of the Dutch Orangemen.

Living up to his advanced billing, Suenaga limited the seemingly unmotivated Cubans to but four hits in a nip-and-tuck Nippon 2-1 victory that left the Cubans with only their second blemish over the nine-game stretch. Rapidly improving Taiwan (the only other club to mar Cuba’s perfect record) seemed to have their own game with the Dutch well in hand through the middle innings of the nightcap, but a huge and timely seventh inning rally by the locals eventually turned the tide for the rebounding hometown forces.

Despite the final-day defeat, the Cubans retained their comfortable lead over the remainder of field and finished up as the only club with an overall winning ledger. The Netherlands finished three and a half games back in the standings, while the Taiwanese and Japanese limped home with three victories apiece. The final team standings for the ten days of qualifying action therefore appear as follows:

World Port Tournament Final Standings (End of Round Robin Games)

Team, Record (Runs For and Against as Tie-Breaker), Point Totals
Cuba 7-1-1 (53-16) 15 points
Netherlands 4-5 (31-42) 8 points
Chinese Taipei 3-5-1 (33-36) 7 points
Japan 3-6 (21-44) 6 points


Bjarkman’s championship game prediction: Cuba 5, Netherlands 1

Cuba has clearly dominated the Rotterdam competition not only on the stadium scoreboard but also in the tournament record books. The only truly outstanding ballplayer not wearing a Cuban uniform has been diminutive Japanese right-hander Syogo Suenaga, who proved the tournament workhorse with 20-plus innings and two complete-game victories.

Cuba’s outstanding .326 team batting average was more than 80 points better than the Dutch, the week’s second best hitting club owning a .244 mark. The staff ERA of 1.48 was more or less tripled by all three rivals (Taipei 3.22, Netherlands 4.10, and Japan 4.71). In individual batting departments Cuban players were the pacesetters in every department outside of stolen bases. And among pitchers the Cubans were just about as dominant, with Miguel Alfredo and Maikel Folch standing at the top of the pack in ERA and surprising Yaumier Sánchez pacing the field in strikeout totals and also in strikeout efficiency.

Cuba has to rank as the heavy favorite entering Sunday’s final match. For one thing, manager Machado has all his top pitchers ready for action. While veteran Diegomar Markwell (MLB headliner Andruw Jones’s cousin) pitched well against Cuba in the opener and has always been a nemesis for the Red Machine, he does not appear as dangerous as Taiwan’s Chen-Hua Lin or Wen-Yang Liao. The latter pair both pitched effectively against Cuba on Thursday and both sport spotless tournament ERAs.

But one would expect the Cuban bats to come alive with another championship now on the line, no matter who the opposition hurler might be. Miguel Alfredo González will likely draw the opening assignment for Roger Machado, with Freddy Asiel and Maikel Folch remaining fresh for early emergence duty. There should be just too much talented young Cuban pitching for the aging Dutch offensive lineup.

Source: Havana Times

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