Venados, Aguilas add players; Liddi drafted (again)

The Mazatlan Venados and Mexicali Aguilas held a brief draft to chose so-called "reinforcement" players for their upcoming Mexican Pacific League championship series.  The winner will represent Mexico at next month's Caribbean Series in the Dominican Republic.

The two remaining teams chose a pair of players apiece, as happened both after the regular season and at the end of the first round of playoffs.  Former Mariners infielder Alex Liddi (pictured) was chosen for a second time this postseason.  After spending the regular season in Guadalajara with the non-qualifying Jalisco Charros, Liddi was picked by Obregon and played two rounds for the Yaquis, batting .319 with 3 homers and 13 RBI's in 11 games.  Liddi is now one of two players selected Tuesday by Mexicali.  The other is right-handed starting pitcher Eddie Gamboa, who was 1-1 with a 2.77 ERA in four starts for Navojoa while walking just four batters in 26 innings.

Mazatlan picked a pair of outfielders, Obregon's Justin Greene and Navojoa's Quincy Latimore.  Greene leads all LMP playoff batters playing ten or more games with a .396 average over 11 games for the Yaquis and is tied with Venados outfielder Jeremias Pineda for most postseason stolen bases with 6.  Latimore has been quiet in the second season thus far, hitting just .240 with 4 RBI's in 13 games, but the Orioles farmhand had a good regular season for the Mayos with a .292 average, 10 homers and 45 ribbies in 68 contests.  Greene and Latimore will both add pop and speed to join Pineda in forming a vastly upgraded outfield.

The MexPac championship series will open Wednesday night at 7:30 local time in Mexicali, where the Aguilas will host the Venados for the first two games before the teams shift to Mazatlan for Game Three on Saturday night at 8PM.