Cuban U-12 baseball team falls to sixth place in Pan-American tournament

The Cuban under-12 baseball team finished in sixth place in the Pan American Championship of the category, which took place in the Mexican city of Aguascalientes.

The Cubans said goodbye to the tournament this Saturday with a defeat against Puerto Rico, with a 3×11 scoreboard, in the discussion of the fifth place, according to review the digital site Jit.

In this way, the team led by Raúl Rodríguez confirmed their bad step in the tournament, in which they could barely achieve two successes —one of them due to a non-presentation from the Dominican Republic—, while conceding five setbacks.

Sixth place in Pan American Sub-12 #Baseball
The team led by Raúl Rodríguez reaped two victories in seven games against the representatives of the Dominican Republic (forfeit) and Brazil. #BaseBall #Cuba https://t.co/dw84UJbveh pic.twitter.com/rIYW64Dc4Y

— JIT Cuban Sport (@jit_digital) May 28, 2023

The Antillean team failed especially in pitching, which was widely punished by their rivals, to the point of supporting more than 12 earned runs per complete game, points out Havana Tribune.

In this way, it was impossible for Cuba to obtain one of the four tickets in dispute to the World Championship of the category, scheduled this year in Chinese Taipei.

This time, the places went to the United States and Venezuela, who will discuss the gold medal this Sunday, as well as the hosts Mexico and Panama, who will play first for third place.

Cuba, which occupies seventh place in the U-12 world ranking, had achieved bronze in 2018 and has accumulated several titles in the Pan-American tournaments, although it has not won the event since 1997.

This bad result among the most inexperienced joins other recent setbacks in various categories and turns on the alarms about the current quality and prospects of baseball on the island.