JARED FREED/Associated Press Juan Reyes of Venezuela celebrates after pitching a complete-game shutout against Japan on Monday, winning 4-0. It’s his second complete-game shutout this tournament and he became the first Venezuela pitcher to accomplish that feat.

To say Venezuela’s Juan Reyes has been superb on the mound this Little League World Series wouldn’t do the right-handed pitcher justice.

Reyes was nearly flawless on Monday afternoon at Volunteer Stadium in a 4-0 win against a solid Japan team, but that win on Monday wasn’t an anomaly.

It was his standard.

So far Reyes is 2-0 for the Latin America Regional champions of Cardenales Little League from Barquisimeto, Venezeula and he’s shut down every offense he’s seen so far.

On Monday, that was a good Japan team in which Reyes threw a complete game with nine strikeouts, three singles allowed and just two walks, doing so on 77 pitches. That shutout on Monday put Reyes on a short list of players to accomplish a tough feat.

Reyes became the first player in Little League World Series history from Venezuela to throw two complete game shutouts at the Little League World Series, the first International pitcher to do so since Yoshinori Satoh of Japan in 2002, and just the 11th player in LLWS history to ever accomplish the feat.

It speaks to the talent Reyes has to put him in some exclusive company.

On Wednesday in the team’s tournament opener, Reyes threw 74 pitches — 55 of which were strikes — and struck out nine with only four hits allowed and one walk.

Eighteen strikeouts, no extra-base hits and no runs allowed? You can’t beat that on the mound in a tournament where pitching is key.

“I thank God first of all,” Reyes said on Monday. “All my pitches were going good and I’m happy with the results I’ve been getting.”

And his team is more than happy with it too.

“I just want to thank God, we have lots of hope for our team,” Venezuela’s Jesus Gomez said on Monday. “We have a great team and defense with good pitching.”

Like many teams, Venezuela’s pitching depth has stood out through the Series so far.

In a 4-0 win over Canada, Andres Reyes Querales went five innings and only came out after reaching his pitch limit and hitting 89 after throwing a one-hitter with seven strikeouts. But Sebastian Lopez came in and relieved him and threw a flawless sixth with one strikeout with no hits or walks.

“Since the very first day, one of the strongest suits of our team is our pitching staff,” Venezuela manager Luis Bermudez said. “A pitching staff can go a long way in this tournament.”

And, while Reyes isn’t eligible to pitch on Wednesday after going 77 pitches on Monday, the team has plenty of other arms that can get the job done.

That includes Reyes Querales, who Bermudez noted would be starting against either Chinese Taipei or Aruba.

While the pitching performances of Reyes and Reyes Querales have been spotlighted, the defense of Venezuela has been great as well. Venezuela has allowed just one error over its three games at the Sereis and the infield and outfield plays great.

Japan put numerous balls into the field of play on Monday in its 4-0 loss, but Venezuela came up sure-handed every time and never let any mistakes allow a runner to reach

“Next to pitching, e work hard on defense,” Bermudez said. “We only made one error in three games, so we have good pitching with good defense behind them.”

In addition, Venezuela catcher Jose JImenez does solid keeping the ball in front of him and not letting passed balls and wild pitches shift momentum.

“I feel so happy and I work so hard,” Jimenez said. “Our pitching staff is so good. (It allows) us to do things back there.”

Posting three straight shutouts to open the tournament — with wins ovoer Puerto Rico (5-0), Canada (4-0) and Japan (4-0) — has the Latin American Regional champions gaining confidence knowing they can compete with solid teams every day on the International side of the bracket.

“”We are playing off our pitching staff,” Bermudez said. “We know we have tough games, but we have the confidence to go out and face every challenge we have.”

And some of that confidence also came in the form of talking to New York Mets manager Carlos Mendoza on Sunday at the MLB Little League Classic at Bowman Field.

Mendoza is from Barquisimeto, Venezuela, the same town as this year’s Little League all-star team. And the team was excited and happy to talk to him on Sunday during the Classic festivities.

“He was so happy and proud of us,” Reyes said. “We were happy they backed us up and gave us some good words and encouragement for the tournament.”

After three games, one thing seems certain and that’s the Latin America Regional champions are going to be difficult to defeat.