Victoria to get Cuban arms
HarbourCats first WCL team to sign pitchers from island
The Victoria HarbourCats this season will feature the first two Cuban players in West Coast League baseball history.
A pair of 20-year-old pitchers, Alejandro Ortega Lopez and Adriel Quesada Peña, from the Unión de Reyes team were signed Tuesday.
Lopez and Peña will be pitching against their Unión de Reyes teammates when the HarbourCats will also play an exhibition game July 30 against that amateur team, which is managed by former Cuban national team catcher Saul Basallo Armas. The Unión de Reyes assistant coaches — Lazaro Apolinario Santana and José Luis Muñoz Pichardo — are also former players from the Cuban Nacionale Series.
All the players on the Unión de Reyes team, which will be touring the Island and hosted by the Chemainus and District Baseball Association, are younger than 23. They have mostly played together for five years under the Matanzas Baseball Association. The team entered the recent playoffs in first place.
They are players and students at Universidad de ciencias de la cultura Física y el deporte de Matanzas, translated as the University of Physical Sciences and Sports Culture of Matanzas. That complies with the WCL’s mandate as a summer collegiate league for NCAA players and other diamond collegians.
Ortega is six-foot-three and Quesada five-foot-11, and scouting reports show both throw in the mid-to-upper 80s. They will be with the HarbourCats from the beginning of the season.
“We want to say a huge thank you to Rick and April Shay, and all the people from the Chemainus and District Baseball Association, who have developed such a strong relationship with Unión de Reyes,” Jim Swanson, managing partner of the HarbourCats, said in a statement.
“Many members of this team will be making their second visit to the Island, and this team will be a great test for our roster. A lot of effort and time has gone into making this happen,” added Swanson, who also has a history working with the Cuban Baseball Association.
The HarbourCats will open the 2018 WCL season with two homestands at Royal Athletic Park: June 1-3 against the Wenatchee AppleSox and June 5-7 against the Yakima Valley Pippins.