• Submitted by: manso
• Sports
• 09 / 16 / 2011

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By: Tomas Armenteros Crespo. Havana, Sep 15 (Prensa Latina) The national baseball pre-teams of Cuba and Puerto Rico will start a series of five friendly matches Wednesday, as a training camp in view to the 2011 World Baseball Cup in Panama, scheduled from October 1st to 15.

Cuban manager Alfonso Urquiola and his coaching team will use these matches to simulate a competitive model allowing the Cuban team to start rotating its starting pitchers and formulate potential batting lineups, the head coach said.

Manager Urquiola said recently he wants to use all his players -38 players in total- now divided into two groups to check how they respond in actual play and in different game situations.

The Latinoamericano Stadium will the stage for the five matches, from September 15 to 19, programmed in the evening except the Sunday game. Meanwhile, Puerto Rican manager Jose David Flores announced righthander Felix Villegas as his starter for the first game.

Villegas is now completely recovered from an injury, thanks to a recent surgical operation. Now the Puerto Rican starter, 33 years old and 6.1 feet tall, will have the hard task stopping Cuban hitters, who will play with the support of their fans.

The Puerto Rican team's leading player is undoubtedly its first baseman Alex Cintron, a man defending his country's national team uniform after playing in several US Major League Baseball teams for 10 years (2001-2011).

Cuba was placed in Group B in the World Baseball Cup in Panama, while Puerto Rico will be in Group A, together with the current world champion, US.