Text: Editorial Cuba Noticias 360
Photo: Emmanuel Santos
The list of Cuban players with Major League experience who decide to return to baseball on the island increased with the incorporation of pitcher Raudel Lazo to the Pinar del Río squad. The experienced 35-year-old left-hander was cleared by the National Commission and will be able to participate with the current leaders of the 63rd National Baseball Series until the end of the season.
The former Miami Marlins will become the first pitcher to join the select group inaugurated by Yunieski “Rikimbili” Betancourt, when he reappeared more than five years ago in the Villa Clara provincial tournament. Later, this club of “returnees” would join in the top national category Erisbel Arruebarruena, Yasmani Tomás, Dariel Álvarez, Rusney Castillo and, this same season, Alexei Ramírez, also on the pativerde roster.
A young Lazo played in the 48th and 49th National Series and in that period he won 10 games, lost 11, saved nine, they hit an anemic .229 and his effectiveness average was 3.97, according to the information he disseminated on his networks. journalist Ernesto Amaya, the first to reveal the news.
He later left the country in search of a signature in MLB and achieved it with the South Florida organization in November 2011, when he was 22 years old. After several contests in the club’s youth ranks, his debut in the Big League came on September 5, 2015 against the New York Mets, where he pitched a scoreless inning and struck out one.
In total, his discreet time on Miami’s first team amounted to only seven games, in which he accumulated 5.2 innings of work, leaving an earned run average of 3.18 and a WHIP of 1.24.
Shortly after, he reached another agreement with the Baltimore Orioles in August 2017, although in that franchise he never rose to the highest level. Most of his baseball experience as an American was in the minor leagues (MiLB), where he recorded 14 wins, nine losses, a 2.98 ERA, nine saves, 183 strikeouts and 50 walks, all in 190.1 innings.
Likewise, he alternated his activity in MiLB with contracts in Venezuela and Mexico with Saraperos de Saltillo, Águilas de Mexicali, Tigres de Aragua and Tiburones de la Guaira, until in 2019 he decided to take a pause in his services on the field, according to the site. Full Swing.
Regardless of the state of form in which Lazo is in his return to Cuban baseball 15 years later, the experience he will bring to a league as diminished as the current National Series will undoubtedly be a plus for a Pinar del Río team that has been the best in the championship from the beginning and is the main contender to lift the title.
