Guantanamo, Cuba native Roenis Elías made his debut this Sunday in the preseason of the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) in the early hours of March 23rd. His first outing was against the Chinatrust Elephants at the Taipei Dome in front of a packed 16,006 fans. Elías was the starter and the winner of the game, in which his Fubón team defeated their rivals by a 6-0 count.
The Cuban left-hander pitched five innings, allowing no runs, only four hits, one walk, and fanned five. Elías started his preseason on the right foot, seeking to establish himself once as one of the best hurlers in the league. Elías faced 20 batters, whom he dealt with without much difficulty, throwing just 79 pitches, 53 of which were for strikes.
It wasn’t a quality outing, as he didn’t finish six innings, but it was an excellent introduction to the 2025 season with the Fubon Guardians,his first team in Taiwanese baseball. Last season in the KBO, the southpaw saw action in 22 games (21 of them as a starter), with an equal number of wins and losses (7-7), a 4.08 ERA in 123.2 innings, 104 strikeouts, 30 walks, and a 1.26 WHIP. These numbers, while acceptable, didn’t earn him a return trip to the team, where he shared the clubhouse with his countrymen Guillermo Heredia.
The Guardians franchise, which will he more than likely be ace of has three pennants in its history. Fubon was the league’s monarch in 2004, 2005, and 2016. In the 2024 they missed the postseason, finishing fifth in the standings across both regular-season stages (53-66-1). This year, they will look to improve on that result and reach the postseason with the help of the lefty.