In an unexpected ending, guest teams Panama and Cuba would play the finals of the Caribbean Series on Sunday, 10 February 2019, with Panama winning the series by defeating Cuba 3 to 1. Neither of the two teams, Panama or Cuba are members of the Caribbean Confederation of Professional Baseball and were added at last minute when because of the political and economic crisis in Venezuela, the series was moved to Panama City. This meant that their players would not benefit from the cash prize of US$215 that would have gone to any of the teams for Puerto Rico, Mexico, Venezuela or the Dominican Republic. The cash prize, instead will be distributed among the runner up teams of the Dominican Republic and Mexico. Panama did get US$100,000 for improvements in the Rod Carew stadium in order to prepare for the championship.
The Dominican Republic’s Estrellas Orientales almost made it. The games played by the team ended:
Game 1: Estrellas Orientales defeated Congrejeros de Santurce (Puerto Rico) 3-1
Game 2: Toros de Herrera (Panama) defeated Estrellas Orientales 4-2
Game 3: Estrellas Orientales defeated Cangrejeros de Santurce 5-4
Game 4: Estrellas Orientales defeated Toros de Herrera 5-3
But the first round of the series ended with a tie between the Estrellas Orientales and the Toros de Herrera of Panama. The team quality balance points system was applied to break the tie and the Toros de Herrera would be the Group B team to pass to the finals against Cuba that had already defeated Venezuela and Mexico in Group A, that also advanced by team quality balance.
Read more in Spanish:
http://www.lidom.com/home/
El Caribe
Diario Libre
11 February 2019
