Preview: Panama hope to keep run going in Matchup with Puerto Rico

World No. 10 Panama takes on No. 8 Puerto Rico at 7pm local time on Thursday at Coloso del Pacifico stadium in Tepic, Mexico to close out the opening round in Group A at the WBSC Premier12 2024 presented by RAXUS.  

Panama is one of the surprise stories of the tournament so far, entering the event as a lower seed and winning two of the four games so far to have chance for the trip to Tokyo on the last day in Mexico. They defeated Venezuela 4-2 and Mexico 3-2, while losing to the Netherlands (8-9) and USA (3-9).

Puerto Rico meanwhile are already eliminated from advancing. They had a strong start with a 1-0 shutout over USA, but then lost three consecutive games to Mexico (5-7), Netherlands (8-20) and Venezuela (2-5).

Puerto Ricois hitting .233/.340/.372 with one third of their hits going for extra bases.
Their team ERA got inflated through their 20 allowed runs against theNetherlands. Aside from that they had solid performances from their staff.
Additionally on Thursday they bring back Jonathan Bermudez as starting pitcher,who dominated USA in the opener, allowing just two hits and a walk in fourinnings, striking out six.

Panama’smanager Jose Mayorga is relying on former MLB player Jaime Barria as startingpitcher in their last opening round matchup. He pitched in the first gameagainst the Netherlands, issuing nine hits, five runs and a walk in fiveinnings, striking out two. His team is sporting a team ERA of 5.30 in the fourgames played. Panama is hitting .254/.293/.493 with 18 runs scored on theoffense side of the game.

Panama isplaying in its first WBSC Premier12. Puerto Rico finished in eighth place in2015 and tenth in 2019.