SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico \u2013 The Puerto Rico Baseball Team secured their spot in the quarterfinals of the 2026 World Baseball Classic by defeating Cuba with a score of 4-1. The match, played on Monday, pitted two undefeated teams from Group A against each other.<\/p>\n
The triumph raises Puerto Rico’s record to 3-0 in the group stage, while Cuba is left with a 2-1 record, still maintaining chances of advancing if they beat Canada in their next game.<\/p>\n
Mart\u00edn Maldonado was the offensive hero of the game, hitting a double that drove in three runs in the second inning against Cuban pitcher Julio Robaina. This hit was crucial to open the scoring and lead the Puerto Rican team to victory.<\/p>\n
The Puerto Rican pitching staff also played a key role.<\/p>\n
Starting pitcher Elmer Rodr\u00edguez pitched for three innings, and the bullpen, composed of Jovani Mor\u00e1n, Yacksel R\u00edos, Fernando Cruz and Edwin D\u00edaz, limited the Cuban offense to only one run and two hits.<\/p>\n
The fourth run for Puerto Rico came in the fifth inning thanks to a sacrifice fly by Carlos Cort\u00e9s. Cuba avoided the shutout in the sixth inning with a run-scoring double by Alfredo Despaigne against R\u00edos.<\/p>\n
The start of the game was delayed by an hour and 13 minutes due to the rain in the San Juan stadium. Despite this, Puerto Rico responded to its fans, maintaining its undefeated record in the tournament.<\/p>\n
With the classification secured, Puerto Rico will represent Group A in the quarterfinals to be played in Houston, facing a team from Group B.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico \u2013 The Puerto Rico Baseball Team secured their spot in the quarterfinals of the 2026 World Baseball Classic by defeating Cuba with a score of 4-1. The match, played on Monday, pitted two undefeated teams from Group A against each other. The triumph raises Puerto Rico’s record to 3-0 in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":112674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[997],"tags":[88,2669,4121,5529],"class_list":{"0":"post-112673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nationals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cuba","10":"tag-puerto-rico","11":"tag-world-classic"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alofokedeportes.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}