Friday, January 29, 2016

Tobis lose 1-0, drop to 1-and-2 at Latin American Series

The Veracruz Winter League pennant-winning Acayucan Tobis lost a 1-0 heartbreaker to Nicaraguan host Rivas Thursday night to wrap up their Latin American Series first round with a 1-2 record, tied for third with Colombia's Barranquilla Caemanes. According to tournament regulations, the Tobis advance to Saturday's semifinal game by virtue of their series-opening 9-3 win over the Caemanes on Tuesday.

For the second day in a row, Acayucan wasted a great pitching performance as Jorge Luis Ibarra put in seven shutout innings of mound work, allowing six hits and striking out four.  Likewise, The Gigantes benefitted from a solid start as Jonathan Aristill went six scoreless innings and striking out five while giving up five hits.

The scoreless draw was broken up in the bottom of the eighth when Rivas pinch-hitter Darrel Campbell (pictured) manufactured a run by singling off Tobis reliever Jose Luis Perez, moving to second on Ivan Marin's sacrifice bunt, stealing third and coming in on Ofilio Castro's groundout in what proved to be the only score Rivas needed as the Tobis went scoreless against Gigantes closer Jose Saenz in the top of the ninth to end the contest.

Acayucan finished with six hits on the night as DH Carlos Pedroso picked up a double and a pair of singles.  Jimmy Gonzalez and former Mexican League star and Dutch WBC player Yurendell de Caster each had two hits for the Gigantes.

Rivas finished the round-robin stage with a 2-1 record to tie for first with the Panama City Nacionals, who lost 4-1 to Colombian champions Barranquilla Friday. Panama City earns the top seed and a free pass to Sunday's title game by beating the Gigantes earlier in the week.  After an open date Friday, Rivas and Acayucan will meet again Saturday at Dennis Martinez National Stadium in Managua after playing Thursday night in Rivas' home ballpark because the Managua facility was unavailable.

2 comments:

Robert Kiyoshi Shadlow said...

So much better now that the Serie Latinoamerica was changed to the week before Serie del Caribe in 2015. In 2013 and 2014, both series were played on the same week.

Bruce Baskin said...

Hi, Robert. It DOES seem smarter to not play the LAS concurrrently with the CS. Just wish the LAS had a website with concurrent info. The difficulty in getting the most basic details for this year's event has me rethinking BBM's coverage level in 2017.

P.S. Let's meet up at a Rainiers game this summer. I plan on going to Cheney 2-3 times after college and Legion seasons are over.