MIAMI — For weeks, Group Cuba ready for Globe Baseball Classic pool play in Taichung, Taiwan. It was a 12-hour time zone distinction from Miami, exactly where the single-elimination tournament they had been pursuing was scheduled to be played.

Cuba arrived on Thursday to commence preparing for the victor from Saturday’s quarterfinal matchup amongst Group USA and Venezuela at loanDepot park.

“In my knowledge, you need to have at least one particular week to get made use of to the new time,” outfielder Alfredo Despaigne mentioned Saturday. “But we are warriors. We’re going to go out and fight.”

Cuba overcame an -two get started in Pool A to emerge from a 5-way tiebreaker. They edged out Australia, four-three, in the quarterfinals on Wednesday to move on to the semifinal round in Miami (Sunday at 7 p.m. ET on FS1).

“These days off should not have an effect on us,” mentioned Despaigne. “… We are attempting to make some adjustments. We’re attempting to be awake for the duration of the day to be a hundred % tomorrow [for] the game. Yes, we required some rest. We educated yesterday, by the way, and right now, as properly. Yesterday, instruction was optional, but some players mentioned, ‘No, we have to make our adjustment,’ and we went to practice.”

Veteran left-hander Roenis Elías will get the get started for Cuba. The opposing beginning pitcher will be determined right after the USA-Venezuela matchup. Though Cuba does not however know who they will face, the group is expecting a distinct style on the mound than it had noticed in earlier Classic action.

“The pitching more than there was not the similar as right here,” Despaigne mentioned. “There are additional higher-speed pitchers right here. They use additional breaking balls more than there. We are now in America, we are no longer in Asia. We have to transform the mindset. I will have to make some adjustments to the speed of the pitchers — and we are undertaking that. I hope we have as fantastic [success] batting as we had in Asia.”

Cuba is coming off a seven-hit efficiency against Australia wherein its runs had been driven in by a collaborative work of 3 distinct players (Despaigne, Yoelkis Guibert and Luis Robert Jr.).

“I assume that they have discovered with every single other,” manager Armando Johnson mentioned. “They have fantastic abilities and I assume that we have a fantastic engagement to face the pitching. It really is hard for the hitters, of course, but we have higher high-quality players and I think that they can make these adjustments to face the pitching right here in Miami.”

Sunday’s semifinal contest is the farthest Cuba has sophisticated in the WBC due to the fact finishing as the runner-up in 2006. Cuba was sixth in ‘09, fifth in ‘13 and seventh in ‘17. 

“We think we have that dream of raising the trophy,” mentioned Johnson. “We recognize, nonetheless, the high-quality of the teams we have to play. But one particular game or two games, any individual could win.”