SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. (AP) — Jaymiëll Martina sat in Lamade Stadium’s postgame media room on Saturday with his right shoulder wrapped in ice and a towel around his shoulders. His pitching duties in the Little League Baseball World Series had just come to an end.
Although Little League rules prohibit Martina from taking the mound again after he threw 86 pitches in Curaçao’s international finale win, the confident, hard-throwing Caribbean ace made his final appearance count.
Martina struck out 12 batters and added an RBI double as Curaçao defeated Japan 4-0 on Saturday to advance to the championship game for the sixth time in the nation’s history.
“It’s very great for the people of Curaçao and for the boys here too,” Curaçao manager Railison Gijsbertha said. “We came here and knew that there’s a history of Curaçao baseball and there is a history between Japan and Curaçao, so we’re very happy with what we’ve accomplished, and we’ll go for the game tomorrow.”
Curaçao will play the winner of the U.S. finale between Nevada and Ohio.
Martina tossed 5 2/3 scoreless innings, only allowing two hits and two walks in the international finale. He left the mound with two outs in the top of the sixth inning to a standing ovation, including from the opposing Japanese fans who sat along the third-base line.
“The players did very well,” Japanese manager Masanori Takeda said. “We lost the first game and we kept fighting and never gave up, that’s the good of this team.”
Giendry Ryan, who combined with Martina to no-hit Japan in a second-round game earlier in the double-elimination tournament, recorded the final out.
Three other players notched hits for the team from Willemstad, Curaçao, which has outscored its opponents 23-3 in four games in Williamsport. It’s the third time in five years a team from Willemstad will battle a U.S. team for Little League supremacy at Lamade Stadium.
It wasn’t easy at first.
Japan started the game eager to avenge its 6-0 loss to Curaçao. It looked like the Japanese hitters had rediscovered their confidence as they lined a pair of hard-hit singles into the outfield with their first two at-bats of the game.
With just one out, Japan loaded the bases moments later, prompting a long exhale from Martina and a visit to the mound from Gijsbertha. The Curaçao coach opted to leave his star in the game, however and Martina struck out the next two batters he faced, pumping the same right-hand that stranded the trio of runners as he skipped to the dugout.
“I started listening to the coach. I was throwing different balls, and then I started listening, and then I threw good,” Martina said.
Japan never threatened after that, struggling as Martina mixed in fastballs and curveballs to oohs and ahs from the nearly 22,000 fans who packed the bleachers and steep hill overlooking the outfield.
“He’s (Martina) a very good pitcher. He has a good fastball and curveball and (slider), we can’t say more,” Takeda said.
Meanwhile, the Curaçao offense broke through in the bottom of the third inning. A barrage of bunts paired with four Japanese throwing errors helped Curaçao build a 3-0 lead.
“Because the score was (low), and we knew Japan is a difficult team, when they couldn’t make outs out of the bunts, we kept bunting,” Gijisbertha said.
Curaçao tacked on a fourth run an inning later as Martina blasted a double to left-center field that plated Ryan.
“The people there in Curaçao are very happy that we’ve got so far,” Gijsbertha said. “We did not make it as (far as) we wanted with the World Cup, but we did it now, and we go on with the wave.”
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Alex Harkins is a student in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State.
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