Cuban baseball team arrives in Chinese Taipei for friendly matches

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 20 (acn) The Cuban team that will attend the 4 th World Baseball Classic (WBC) is in Chinese Taipei for the start of the 11 training matches they will play in Asia prior this major event.

Carlos Marti, manager of the Caribbean squad, told JIT digital magazine that the games agreed on Taiwanese soil, South Korea and Japan also intend to evaluate variants to be implemented at the WBC.
He added that pitchers to be used in the first match against the local national side will be Raidel Martinez, Yosvani Torres and lefthander Yoanni Yera, while closer Jose Angel García and the also lefty Leandro Martínez could also appear on the mound.
According to the source, in Chinese Taipei, the Cubans will also face the national university squad and the Brother Elephants, a team of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL).
Cuba will arrive at the WBC with a team mostly made up by players who attended the 59th Caribbean Series, held in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, where they ranked fourth after a brilliant performance in that contest.
At Japan´s Tokyo Dome, Cuba will fight for one of the two tickets to the second round of the WBC from March 7, when in Group B it will face the local side in addition to China and Australia.
Cuba´s best performance on WBC was achieved in the first edition where it ranked second, because in the second and third contests it finished sixth and fifth, respectively.