Guam’s Diaz dazzles fans with homers

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BANGOR – Alejandro Diaz is showing Mansfield Stadium fans the kind of power and offense they haven’t yet seen in a Senior League World Series.

Diaz, a catcher for the Asia-Pacific representative from Agana, Guam, has already hit three home runs. No one had ever hit more than one since Bangor started hosting the World Series in 2002.

He’s also helped his team tie two other squads with three home runs, and he’s also tied the record for total bases (19).

But Diaz knows all the home runs he hits don’t mean anything unless his team wins. That’s what happened Tuesday evening, when the 5-foot-10, 210-pound 16-year-old hit two in a 7-5 loss to the U.S. South team.

The loss also hampered Guam’s hopes to make Friday’s semifinals, although an 8-6 win Wednesday against Canada could help a little.

“I don’t feel like I did so much damage,” he said Wednesday. “This is a team sport and I’m here with the team, and we didn’t get to bang as much as we wanted and we didn’t get the win. Now we’re praying that the other guys can beat [the U.S. South team from Clarksville, Ga.] so we can go in there.”

Diaz said he’s been swinging the bat well, but the dimensions of the field at the Asia-Pacific regional in Tinian in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands were too big to send balls out.

“It was pretty hard to hit a home run out of that,” he said.

All of Diaz’s homers in Bangor have been hit over the left or left-center fence in Mansfield, which varies from 330 to 375 feet.

Diaz, who is 9-for-14 (.642) with five RBIs, was intentionally walked in Wednesday’s win, which didn’t turn out well for Canada. After walking he stole second and eventually scored on a wild pitch.

Diaz was trying to keep his hitting a secret.

“Parents [of the other teams] have been asking me, who does well in hitting?” he said with a smile. “I told my parents not to say anything.”

Late at-bat pivotal for Tbilisi

Tbilisi, Georgia’s stunning upset of Santiago Veraguas, Panama, in Pool B play Wednesday almost didn’t happen.

Under Little League rules, each player on the team must get one at-bat and play in the field for three defensive outs.

Leftfielder Shota Gvalia entered the game as a defensive replacement in the sixth inning, but nearly didn’t get to bat.

In fact, had Tbilisi went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the sixth, he wouldn’t have batted, as he was the fourth scheduled batter of the inning.

And Tbilisi would have lost the game.

But Tornike Nikolashvili led off the Tbilisi sixth with a walk, and Levan Gobajishvili added a one-out single, which brought Gvalia to the plate.

Gvalia flied out to center, the the fact he batted at all was the most important thing to the Europe-Middle East-Africa champions.

Panama team officials briefly questioned after the game whether Tbilisi used all of its players, but after a check of the official scorebook the original result – a 2-1 Tbilisi win – was upheld.

Better late than never for luggage

Tbilisi, Georgia’s run in this year’s Senior League World Series ended on a pair of high notes Wednesday.

The team earned a 2-1 victory over Santiago Veraguas, Panama, in its final game of pool play, and much of the team’s luggage finally arrived after being held up at Heathrow Airport in London for a week.

That capped off a week that began with half the team arriving in Bangor at 3:25 a.m. on Sunday, and then having its first game some 17 hours later suspended by rain after one inning.

“I’m very sad that we had no time for acclimation,” said the team’s English-speaking coach, Gia Chikhradze. “We had very terrible travel because of a strike we were stuck in London. Just today all of our luggage and equipment came two hours before our game.

“We had lost everything, and everything was up in the air and that made it difficult for us.”

Chikhradze believes the team was just finding its rhythm as its four-game run in Pool B ended.

“I’m sure if we had another game tomorrow, we could be more successful,” said Chikhradze, who said the team will stay in the area through the weekend.

And while the luggage finally reached Bangor, not everyone with an interest in the Georgian baseball program did make it time to witness Wednesday’s game.

“It’s too bad our Little League president and minister of sport weren’t here,” said Chikhradze. “They’re arriving [Wednesday] night.”