2026 World Baseball Classic: Series vs. Cuba is Spring Training For Veteran Manager Dusty Baker and Nicaragua

LEON, Nicaragua – It’s all part of the process, this four-game series between Nicaragua and Cuba in advance of the 2026 World Baseball Classic.

While Cuba manager German Mesa is pretty familiar with his squad, despite having only taken the reigns of the national team last June, Nicaragua skipper Dusty Baker is still learning what his players are capable of. That said, the veteran of 26 Major League Baseball seasons as a manager has made his presence known.

“I notice that the guys are in a different mentality now because he’s a manager. He’s not afraid to tell you in your face, ‘Bro, you’re doing wrong. You’re not gonna play. You’re not playing with me till you fix yourself,'” said 14-year MLB veteran pitcher Erasmo Ramirez, who threw two innings as Nicaragua’s starter in the first game of the series. “So, guys like that, those are the managers you need to get better. You don’t want somebody to tell you, ‘Hey, it’s okay, just keep working.'”

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what Nicaragua needs for the 2026 World Baseball Classic. It was just three years ago that the Blueshirts went 0-4 in Pool D, got outscored 22-4 and had to run the gauntlet of requalifying for this year’s WBC. That said, Nicaragua continues to have difficulty getting runs across the plate, if the first two games of the series are any indication. After the first game finished in a 2-2 tie last Thursday night, Sunday’s Game 2 ended with a 3-1 Cuba win at Estadio Rigoberto Lopez Perez in Leon.

Facing a Cuba lineup with seven players bound for the WBC and a starter in Cuba’s Designated Pitcher Pool, Nicaragua managed to get just five runners into scoring position the entire game and went 1-9 at the plate when they had them, despite getting 10 hits in the game.

The biggest question for Baker heading into the WBC is pitching: Who can he throw against the powerful lineups of Venezuela and the Dominican Republic when his club gets to Miami in two weeks? Perhaps he got some answers today.

“We just got to cut down the walks, you know, because that’s what hurt us today, you know, with the walks, but the pitchers are, the pitches are throwing good,” Baker said. His pitchers allowed seven walks over the course of the game, and two of the Cuba batters who drew free passes. 

Baker got two efficient, hitless innings from starter Ronald Medrano, who recorded three strikeouts and issued a walk to Cuba leadoff batter Roel Santos. Medrano, whois recovering from a quadriceps injury suffered during a Feb. 4 start at the Caribbean Series where he was pitching for the Charros de Jalisco of Mexico’s Liga ARCO Mexicana del Pacifico, appeared to have no difficulty, throwing 15 of his 22 pitches for strikes.

Medrano, the skipper said, “started off a little rusty, but then in the second inning, he got much better,” Baker said of his potential ace. “So as long as he’s healthy, I’m not worried. Yeah, he’s doing good. … He just got through pitching too. And so our trainer has been working on him. And, you know, he says he feels good. As long as he feels good, we feel good.”

Rodney Theophile, who is is in the Designated Pitcher Pool for Nicaragua for the WBC, came on for the bottom of the fifth for Nicaragua, and promptly found himself with runners at the corners and no outs after walking Ariel Martinez and giving up a single to Christian Rodriguez. After striking out Andrys Perez and Yulieski Remon, Theophile was nearly out of the jam, but Luis Mateo reached on a throwing error by Nicaragua second baseman Benjamin Alegria, allowing Martinez to score to make it 1-0. Christian Rodriguez got greedy and tried to score, but he was thrown out at the plate to end the inning.

Two innings later, with one out in the bottom of the seventh, Ariel Martinez battled through an eight-pitch at-bat against Nicaragua’s Osman Gutierrez, winning the scuffle by launching the final pitch into the left-field bullpen for a 2-0 Cuba lead.

Cuba added another in the eighth when pinch hitter Yoel Yanqui led off with a walk, and a walk to Roel Santos and a a single by Leonel Moa loaded the bases with one out for World Baseball Classic legend Alfredo Despaigne, who drew a walk to force Yanqui home.

Nicaragua scored its lone run in the top of the ninth when Indiana-born Chase Dawson singled home Juan Diego Montes to cut into the lead, though it wasn’t enough, as Omar Mendoza grounded into a double play to essentially end the game.

Despite the game being decided by Mendoza’s double play, the teams played the bottom of the ninth, with Nicaragua reliever Carlos Teller retiring the side in order.

All told, seven of the players in Cuba’s starting lineup, plus Yanqui, who entered the game as a pinch hitter in the eighth inning, and reliever Randy Martinez, who allowed a hit and a walk throwing the scoreless sixth, will be on Cuba’s roster when they begin pool play in San Juan on March 6, and two more pitchers who took the mound for Cuba, starter Dario Sarduy and reliever Armando Duenas, are in the Designated Pitcher Pool.

This begs several questions, the first of which is: If Cuba, which reached the semifinals in 2023, can only post three runs against Nicaragua, which finished last in Pool D and had to qualify for this year’s WBC, do they realistically have a chance of a similar result this time around?

It’s hard to say. Of the 30 players on Cuba’s WBC roster, only 11 of them are with the team for the four-game series here in Nicaragua. But most of those players did play today, and though they won, it was likely closer than manager German Mesa and his club would have liked. But Cuba’s two best pitchers, Nippon Professional Baseball stars Livan Moinelo and Raidel Martinez, haven’t yet had the chance to throw in the series.

“They are going to work now. At this point in our preparation, we are preparing them for the last game,” Cuba manager German Mesa said. 

For Baker and his coaches, the preparation continues. He and his staff are getting to know the players, sure, as he, third base coach Gary Pettis, hitting coach Randall Simon, bullpen coach Dan Firova, and outfield coach Jacque Jones haven’t spent a lot of time studying Nicaraguan baseball. But they’re also getting to know each other again.

“We missed a couple signs, you know, a couple of señales. And me and Gary Pettis, you know, we got to get together, too. because we haven’t been together in a long time. And so, you know, this is spring training for, you know, for all of us,” Baker said of his time in Nicaragua with his staff, including Pettis, who was his third base coach with the Houston Astros from 2020-23.

“It’s a condensed spring training, but this is spring training. It’s spring training for us, too.”

Photo: Nicaragua manager Dusty Baker addresses the media after Cuba’s 3-1 win against Nicaragua at Estadio Rigoberto Lopez Perez in Leon, Nicaragua. (Photo: Leif Skodnick/World Baseball Network)