Chris Roberts, Craig Wilson and Phil Nevin belted home runs Wednesday night to lead the U.S. Olympic baseball squad to an 8-2 victory over Cuba, to even their three-game series at one apiece, the official Cuban news agency said.
Pitchers Rick Green and left-hander Jeff Alkire won the game for the United States to avenge Tuesday night's 16-1 drubbing by the Cubans, Prensa Latina said in a dispatch monitored in Mexico City.Two pairs of runs in the first two innings gave the United States a commanding 4-0 lead before a run from Juan Padilla and a sacrifice fly ball from Luis Ulacia in the second innings took the score to 4-2 to give the Americans their only scare of the night.
The United States scored single runs in the third and sixth inning and two more in the seventh.
The game was played in Holguin, 450 miles east of Havana, where the teams will play Thursday. The games will continue in Denver on Saturday before moving on to Minneapolis.
Both Cuba and the U.S are using the games as warm ups for the Barcelona Olympics where they will compete against the Dominican Repubic, Puerto Rico, Japan, Tapei, Italy and Spain.