Aussies going for gold after knocking of Cubans

The baseball gods giveth and they taketh away.

Unfortunately for the Cuban entry at the World Junior Baseball Championship, they gave the runs to the Australians and took them away from the Caribbean powerhouse in a wild seventh inning that decided their semifinal match Saturday afternoon at Port Arthur Stadium.

The 2-1 win for the Australians means the team from Down Under will enjoy its best finish yet at the world juniors, the trip to Sunday’s final a first for a country whose baseball program is still in its infancy, but a country that may just skip the painful development stage and skip straight to success.

The Aussies showed maturity well beyond their teenaged years, able to rebound from a wild pitch in the fifth that plated the game’s first run and gave the 11-time champion Cuban squad a lead it looked like it might be all they’d need to play for gold on Sunday.

And, if it weren’t for two plays, it might just have been enough.

Cuban starter Darien Nunez was cruising along in the seventh inning, having allowed just four hits until that point.

After retiring the first batter he faced, Nunez walked Ryan Battaglia and Luke Parish back-to-back. He then struck out Jack White and looked like he might be out of the jam. Josh Matavesi, however, had different plans.

Matavesi lifted a high fly ball to right that looked like it had RF Jorge Soler’s glove written all over it. But the winds kept propelling it deeper and deeper, and eventually it caromed off the wall and both Battaglia and Parish scored easily, giving the Australians a 2-1 lead.

“I came up with two out and I just looked up and didn’t want to let (Nunez) beat me,” Matavesi said. “I saw that pitch and I saw it well. I saw it all the way. I just swung. I didn’t think I got it as good as I did and then I looked up and the ball was off the wall. I was standing on second base and two runs scored.”

It all would have been for not a half an inning later if it weren’t for the heroics of LF Andy Campbell, who absolutely robbed one of the Cubans most dangerous hitters, Lazaro Hernandez.

Hernandez, who hit the triple Friday that eliminated the Americans from medal contention, smacked a high fly ball to left-centre, that like the Energizer Bunny kept going, and going and going.

With pinch runner Lazaro Ramirez on base, Campbell kept a bead on the ball, timed his leap and drew it back from over the fence, stealing a sure two-run homerun, and perhaps the game, from the Cubans, who after the game refused to speak with media.

“Off the bat I thought it was going. I did a couple of circles at first, but then I jumped and hoped for the best. I just winged it, I guess,” said Campbell, who in fact had never played the outfield before joining the Australian junior squad for the world juniors.

“It saved the game for us,” said manager Tony Harris.

Aussie pitcher James Murphy was the main reason the team won, Harris said. Murphy was perfect through three, and wasn’t scored on until the fifth, when DH Victor Rivas scored from third on a wild pitch.

Harris said his team, which got off to a 1-2 start at the tournament, has managed to put a complete all-around game together in the ensuing days, led by the pitching staff, but, he added, combined with solid hits and timely defence.

In successive days they knocked off the winners of the previous five WJBCs, and on Sunday will play a Chinese-Taipei team that has won silver five times since 1995, guaranteed to take home no less than silver when all is said and done.

Who his team plays for the title mattered little to Harris, he said.

“We’re not intimidated by anybody. We’re not the intimidators. But we just worry about our game and not necessarily the opposition that we’re dealing with.

Still, he knows it means something.

“I’d like to think this puts Australia on the map a little bit internationally. Up until this point I guess we’ve been a country that’s sort of battled. We’ll be in that top four or top five, but this thing’s coming together. It’s a good program.”

The Cubans, who finished 3-2 in the round robin, kept the pressure on, even after Murphy was lifted after seven in favour of reliever Lucas Bakker. They had runners on first and second with one out and second and third with two outs in the eighth, but couldn’t score. Down to their final strike twice, again they put runners on first and second in the ninth, but with the game on the line catcher Daniel Crespo popped to second.

The Cubans will play the bronze medal match Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. at Port Arthur Stadium against Canada, which fell 3-1 to Chinese-Taipei on Saturday night. The gold medal game is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.