Toros clip Pericos, 5-3, to go up two game in Serie del Rey

Tijuana Toros catcher Juan Apodaca

Roberto Lopez had two doubles and two singles with one run scored while Juan Apodaca collected three hits, including a key solo homer, to lead the Tijuana Toros to a 5-3 win over Puebla Wednesday night in Game Two of the Mexican League's best-of-7 Serie del Rey championship finals at Tijuana.

The Toros now lead by a 2-games-to-0 margin heading into Friday's battle in Puebla.  Josh Outman is the likely starter for the Pericos while Tijuana manager Pedro Mere is expected to counter with Horacio Ramirez on Friday.  Saturday's Game Four will feature the Toros' Miguel Pena going up against Andres Meza for Puebla.

TIJUANA 5-12-0, Puebla 3-10-0 (Tijuana leads series, 2 games to 0)
W-M. Serrano (1-0).  L-H. Garcia (0-11).  SV-Urquidez (1).  A-16,231.  T-3:03.

The Toros took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the third inning when Jose Guadalupe Chavez led the frame off with a sharp single to right off Pericos starter Jaime Lugo, followed two outs later by a line-drive homer over the wall in left-center off the bat of Cyle Hankerd.  Puebla responded with three runs in the top of the fifth to take the lead.  Jesus Arredondo and Ricky Rodriguez hit back-to-back, one-out doubles, with Arredondo scoring on Rodriguez' two-bagger to put the visitors on the board.  After Cesar Tapia grounded to Chavez at short for the second out, longtime second baseman Hector Garanzuay, in his first year with Puebla after being jettisoned from Monclova following eleven summers with the Acereros, lofted an Alex Sanabia delivery over TJ rightfielder Dustin Martin for a two-run homer to put Puebla up, 3-2.

Following a scoreless fifth for both teams, Tijuana tied the contest in the bottom of the sixth on Apodaca's solo homer to left, which would turn out to be Lugo's last pitch of the evening.  The Toros added two more runs in the seventh.  Roberto Lopez led off with a double and advanced to third on Corey Brown's groundout to Rodriguez at first.  At that point, Puebla manager Tim Johnson replaced reliever Henry Garcia with Adrian C. Ramirez, who intentionally walked Hankerd to pitch to ex-MLBer Jorge Cantu.  The former Marlin hit a sacrifice fly to Julio Borbon in center to score Lopez with the go-ahead tally.  Ramirez then walked Dustin Martin (unintentionally) before letting up an Apodaca single that scored Hankerd from second to give the Toros a 5-3 advantage.  Pericos closer Deunte Heath came in a little early, but got the final out to end the seventh with no further damages.

Tijuana setup man Juan Sandoval extended his string of scoreless playoff appearances to eight games with a 1-2-3 eighth inning (only allowing one single over 8.1 frames), but closer Jason Urquidez struggled in the ninth after the Toros went down runless in the bottom of the eighth.  After getting Rodriguez looking for a leadoff strikeout, Urquidez gave up back-to-back singles to Tapia and Garanzuay to put the tying runs on base.  Urquidez settled down after that, getting Sergio Perez to fly out to Roberto Lopez in left and slipping a third strike past Alberto Carreon to end the game with the save and a Toros win, putting Tijuana up in the series, 2 games to 0.

Lopez ended with a 4-for-5 night at the plate for TJ, doubling twice and scoring once, while Apodaca was 3-for-5 with a homer and three RBIs.  Garanzuay led the Pericos with three hits, including his two-run homer in the fourth.  Middleman Mark Serrano pitched a scoreless seventh for the win in his sixth consecutive appearance without allowing a run.  Garcia took the loss for Puebla after giving up the leadoff double in the seventh to Lopez, who eventually scored the game-winning run after Garcia had already exited.  Interesting to note that Tijuana's win in Tuesday's opener marked the first time a home team had won a game when the Toros and Pericos met in 2017.  During the regular season, the teams were 3-3 against each other after the Bulls swept a May three-game series in Puebla, with thee Pericos taking three in Tijuana in a mid-June set.  A crowd of 16,231 attended Wednesday's contest at Estadio Gasmart for a two-day total attendance of 31,336 in the Baja California Norte city.

The two teams will take Thursday off as a travel day before playing Game Three on Friday at Puebla's Estadio Hermanos Serdan.  One interesting subtext to this series has been the postseason attendance in the colonial city after owner Gerardo Benavides threatened to move the Pericos out of town for 2018.  The Parrots finished ninth on the LMB attendance tables with 3,186 fans per opening over 48 home games for a total of 152,923.  After averaging 7,226 for two wins during the first round sweep over Quintana Roo, Puebla fans came out in force for the LMB South championship series against Yucatan, with 33,623 attending the three home games against the Leones.

Benavides has played the role of carpetbagger owner after transferring over twenty players from last year's Pericos championship team to his hometown Monclova Acereros for 2017, but he'll have a harder time justifying a postseason move.  Juarez has reportedly been considered, but battles involving drug cartels in cities along the Mexico-Texas border have made baseball a tough sell in places like Juarez and Nuevo Laredo (rumored to be a potential 2018 destination for the Veracruz Rojos del Aguila, although questions about who actually OWNS the Aguilas have put any future plans on hold).

привет нашим российским хакерам

Madero HR paces Yucatan win; TJ bops Sultanes again

Diego Madero cracked a three-run homer to key a five-run outburst in the sixth inning as the Yucatan Leones defeated the Puebla Pericos, 7-6, Friday night at home to even their Mexican League South Division championship series at one game apiece.  In the LMB North title series, Horacio Ramirez pitched seven innings of one-run, four-hit ball as his Tijuana Toros pulled away from the Monterrey Sultanes, 7-1, in the border city, giving the Bulls a 2-0 lead in their best-of-7 set.

Saturday will be an off day as both series shift to Puebla and Monterrey, respectively, for Game Three action Sunday.  No pitching matchups have been announced for either contest.


YUCATAN 7-9-1, Puebla 6-14-1
W-Fr. Rodriguez (1-0).  L-Morales (0-1).  SV-Belisario (1).  A-12,000.  T-3:30.

Puebla took an early lead with two runs in the top of the first inning and built their advantage to 5-2 until the bottom of the sixth, when Yucatan scored five runs to go ahead, and the Leones never looked back in a 7-6 win over the defending champs in Merida Friday.  The Pericos had won Game One at Parque Kukulkan on Thursday.

The Pericos got things going early, scoring runs on doubles by Issmael Salas and Ricky Rodriguez in the first off Leones starter James Russell to go up, 2-0.  Yucatan got one run back in the second on Juan Francisco's leadoff homer and one more in the third on Diego Madero's RBI single to knot the score in the third, but the visitors plated three tallies in the fourth to regain the lead.  Puebla loaded the bases with one out against Russell, who gave up a go-ahead single to Alberto Carreon before being replaced on the mound by Alejandro Soto, making his first appearance for Yucatan since July 29.  After Julio Borbon brought in Jon Del Campo with a sacrifice fly, Soto hurt his own cause by dropping a two-out popup by Carreon as Sergio Perez (who was running on the pitch) motored in from third.

Puebla held their three-run lead until the sixth, when the first three Yucatan hitters got on base to chase Pericos starter Josh Outman.  Reliever Mario Morales was welcomed into the game by a two-run double by Sebastian Valle, bringing in.  With two on and two out, Diego Madero lofted a homer to left, giving the Leones a 7-5 lead.  The visitors closed the gap to one run in the eighth when a fielder's choice grounder to second by Carreon scored Cesar Tapia, but Yucatan closer Ronald Belisario got the final out of the inning and pitched a scoreless ninth with Jesus Arredondo grounding into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game.

Onetime Angels reliever Francisco Rodriguez, who's been a starter in Yucatan this year, pitched three scoreless innings out of the bullpen to earn the win for the Leones while Morales' bad fifth inning tagged him with the loss.  Madero finished the night with three hits and four RBIs for the winners while Valle had a pair of hits, two ribbies and a run.  Salas had three hits for Puebla, scoring one run and driving in another, and Del Campo contributed two doubles and a run for manager Tim Johnson's Pericos.

With the series tied at one game apiece, the two teams will play Game Three Sunday in Puebla.


TIJUANA 7-10-0, Monterrey 1-5-0
W-H. Ramirez (1-0).  L-A. Castro (0-1).  A-17,021.  T-2:57.

The Toros registered their second one-sided win over visiting Monterrey Friday, but this one was closer than the final score implies.  Tijuana starter Horacio Ramirez fell behind, 1-0, in the top of the first inning when Ramon Rios scored for the Sultanes on a Luis Juarez sacrifice fly, then settled into a pitchers duel with his Monterrey counterpart, Angel Castro, as Rios' counter stood as the only score of the game heading into the bottom of the sixth.  Then the potent Toros offense went to work.

Isaac Rodriguez led off the frame with a single, moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Jose Guadalupe Chavez and scampered to third when Castro uncorked a wild pitch to Roberto Lopez.  Castro then plunked Lopez to put runners at the corners, bringing up Corey Brown, who singled Rodriguez in to tie the game while Lopez moved to second.  Castro walked Cyle Hankerd to fill the bags and Jorge Cantu followed with a two-run single to left, giving the home team a 3-1 lead.  That was all for Castro, who was replaced by Nick Struck on the hill.  The Oregonian rewarded Monterrey skipper Felix Fermin by retiring Dustin Martin and Juan Apodaca to end the inning.

Tijuana essentially put the game away with a four-run eighth inning against Sultanes closer Wirfin Obispo.  Apodaca hit a two-run, ground-rule double with one out, then scored himself when Alex Liddi belted a two-run homer to left, bringing the score to 7-1.  It was left to Toros closer Jason Urquidez to take the mound in the top of the ninth, and while the Californian did allow a two-out double to Juarez, he induced Daniel Mayora into a groundout to Chavez at short to end the contest.

Ramirez earned the win for Tijuana as the ex-MLBer went seven innings and only allowed that single run in the first, scattering four hits and one walk while striking out four.  Castro was saddled with the loss, showing three earned runs on five hits for his 5.1 innings of work.  Rodriguez had three hits for the Toros while Brown had two hits, scored twice and drove in a run.  Juarez had two of Monterrey's five hits, including a double and his RBI sac fly.  A Tijuana crowd of 17,021 looked on, giving the Toros over 30,000 in attendance for Games One and Two.

The series shifts to Monterrey for Sunday's Game Three as the Sultanes try coming back from a 2-games-to-0 deficit.

Toros sweep Sultanes in Monterrey, take LMB North lead

The Tijuana Toros knew they had an opportunity as difficult as it was enormous when they traveled to Monterrey for a three-game midweek series against the Sultanes.  Manager Pedro Mere's Toros had been looking up at Monterrey in the Mexican League's North Division standings all season, but Tijuana had whittled the Sultanes' lead down to two-and-a-half games by the time the set opened Tuesday.  The series gave the Bulls a chance to at least narrow the gap a bit, but they were facing a Monterrey team that leads the LMB in batting with a .315 average and had won seven games in a row, including road trip sweeps in both Campeche and Tabasco (where they endured lighting problems at Parque Centenario 27 de Febrero, where just 178 fans attended a doubleheader last Thursday).

The Toros not only accepted the challenge in front of them, they won all three games at Estadio Monterrey to pull a half-game ahead of the Sultanes in the standings.  Tijuana is now 54-26 (the best record in the Liga) while Monterrey fell to 53-26.  Monclova has been a few games back in third in the LMB North, but the Acereros have won their last eight games to pull four-and-a-half games out of the lead in what is shaping up to be a dandy division race over the last month of the regular season schedule.

Tijuana opened the series Tuesday with a 4-3 win as Dustin Martin's ninth-inning leadoff solo homer off reliever Thomas Melgarejo provided the difference.  Martin's blast gave TJ a two-run cushion that was enough to withstand a Monterrey rally in the bottom in the frame when closer Jason Urquidez gave up three hits, including an RBI single by Moises Gutierrez, and had runners on the corners with one out before striking out MVP candidate Chris Roberson and getting Ramon Rios to fly out to Corey Brown in center to end the contest with his 16th save.  Martin, who has struggled his way to a .250 batting average this season, went 2-for-3 with a walk and scored twice for Tijuana.  The loss wasted a 4-for-4 night for Sultanes' DH Luis Juarez, last winter's Mexican Pacific League batting champion who's hit .447 over his past ten games to raise his LMB season average to .299.  Toros starter Miguel Pena allowed two runs over six innings to go to 7-2 on the year while Angel Castro let in three scores over six frames for Monterrey to fall to 9-3.

The Toros held off Monterrey again on Wednesday night in a 4-3 win over the Sultanes.  Tijuana outhit the home team by a 13-6 margin, leaving ten runners on base, but the key hit of the night was a dribbler to the mound by Jose Guadalupe Chavez in the top of the sixth that enabled Roberto Lopez to come streaking in from third base to give the visitors a 4-2 lead.  Once again, the Sultanes came back to make it a one-run game in the bottom of the eighth when Zoilo Almonte poked a single into right field with runners at the corners to score Walter Ibarra from third, but Urquidez had a 1-2-3 ninth and struck out the last two batters to preserve the TJ lead for his 17th save.  Chavez singled twice and doubled as the Toros' leadoff batter, scoring once in addition to his run-scoring safety and three other Tijuana batters had two hits apiece.  Ibarra and Leo German each had two of Monterrey's six hits (a German double was the Sultanes' lone extra-base hit) as Tijuana starter Manny Barreda (3-6) allowed one run on two hits over six innings, striking out seven.  Monterrey's Jorge Reyes (1-2) was scuffed for ten hits in five frames in the loss, but only let in two runs.

Tijuana had to go into overtime for Thursday night's 8-4 victory to complete the broom job.  The Toros scored single runs in the second (Oscar Robles doubling in Jorge Cantu) and third (Alfredo Amezaga socked a leadoff homer) as the MLB veterans gave the visitors a 2-0 advantage.  Juarez evened the game with a two-run homer in the fourth off TJ starter Horacio Ramirez, another MLB vet,  and then took a 4-2 led two entradas later when Almonte lofted a two-run bomb off Toros reliever Ricky Ramirez, who'd walked Rios to open the inning.  This time, it was Tijuana's turn to come back, scoring once in the eighth on Brown's leadoff homer (his LMB-leading 19th) and knotting the contest in the ninth when Chris Valencia came in from third when Ibarra bobbled a Robles grounder to short.  After a scoreless tenth inning, the Toros put four runs on the board in the top of the eleventh as Martin lined a two-run single off Marco Carrillo to cap the scoring.  Edwin Quirarte came in from the bullpen to retire the Sultanes in order to end the game and series with another Tijuana win.  Chavez, Brown and Robles all had three hits to key the Toros' 17-hit attack, with Brown scoring twice, while Almonte's homer and single represented two of Monterrey's eight hits.  Pedro Villareal pitched a scoreless ninth and tenth for the Toros to earn the win.  Marco Rivas gave up Tijuana's first two runs in the eleventh to absorb the loss for Monterrey.

One interesting aspect of the series was attendance at the 27,000-seat Estadio Monterrey.  The Sultanes lead all of Minor League Baseball in attendance with a 12,047 average per opening and drew 27,529 over the three-game series with Tijuana (all played in triple-digit temperatures), but only 5,232 turned out for Tuesday's game while 6,858 were on hand Wednesday before 15,439 were in the stands for Thursday's finale.  One Puro Beisbol columnist mentioned earlier this week that the Sultanes have regularly given away tickets this season to put more backsides in the seats, but were not giving out free ducats for the tilts with the Toros.  No word on whether the house was papered for the Thursday night game, but it serves as a cautionary tale for teams in any sport who let people into their games for free and hope to make more money on concessions and merchandise sales: After people get used to attending your games for nothing, you run the risk that they'll eventually believe that's what your games are worth.

The Toros will move on to Monclova Friday for a three-game series with the Acereros while the Sultanes welcome the Mexico City Diablos Rojos for a weekend set in Monterrey.

Toros stay alive; Serie del Rey moves to Tijuana

Roberto Lopez had a sub-.200 playoff batting average entering Monday night's Mexican League Championship Series Game Five in Puebla, but the Tijuana first baseman broke out of his slump in a big way to lead the Toros to a 9-2 win over the Pericos, staying alive in the Serie del Rey and sending the series back to the border city for Game Six on Wednesday.  The Toros trailed 2-1 before pushing eight runs across the plate in the top of the ninth, silencing the packed stands at Estadio Hermanos Serdan.

Lopez (pictured) cracked a double and homer in the ninth inning to the plate for the Toros, driving in three runs and scoring twice as Tijuana shaved Puebla's series lead to 3-games-to-2.  The Pericos had won the first two of three games played in Puebla, all before sellout crowds of 12,112.

Starting pitchers Horacio Ramirez of Tijuana and Orlando Lara of Puebla traded zeros until the top of the third inning, when Roberto Lopez crashed a solo homer to center off Lara to give the visitors a 1-0 nod.  The score stood until the bottom of the fifth, when Willy Taveras slashed a triple off Ramirez and later came in on Daric Barton's two-out single up the middle to tie things up for the host team.  The Pericos took the lead one frame later when Ruben Rivera led off the sixth with a single, moved to second on a groundout and scored on Rudy Amador's seeing-eye single into center to give Puebla a 2-1 advantage.

The score held until the crazy top of the ninth, during which the visitors sent twelve batters to the plate and put those eight runs on the scoreboard.  Dustin Martin, who's having a Playoff MVP-worthy finals for Tijuana, led off the inning against Puebla closer Chad Gaudin with a triple past a diving Nyjer Morgan in left field  Martin scored on third baseman Amador's throwing error on a Carlos Valencia grounder to knot the game at 2-2 and the Toros eventually filled the bases for Lopez, whose two-run double broke the deadlock for good.  Gaudin registered his first out of the inning when the sixth batter faced, Miguel Torrero, grounded out to second.  After Gaudin got Jose Guadalupe Chavez to ground into a fielder's choice out as Puebla shortstop Alberto Carreon threw Alex Romero out at the plate for the second out, the bottom really fell out for the eleven-year MLB vet.

Throwing to pinch-hitter Emmanuel Valdez, Gaudin uncorked a wild pitch that brought Lopez rumbling in from third to make it a 5-2 Toros lead, then let up a Valdez double to center that scored Chavez.  Puebla skipper Cory Snyder deduced that Gaudin maybe just didn't have it after eight batsmen and four runs and brought in Benny Suarez.  It only took nine pitches and consecutive walks to Olmo Rosario and Martin for Snyder to figure that Suarez might not have it either, calling in Julio Felix from the bullpen to face Edson Garcia, who'd pinch-run earlier and stayed in the game defensively in center field.  While working on Garcia, Felix unleashed a wild pitch of his own to move Valdez in from third to bring the score to 7-2.  Garcia then drilled a liner into right to bring in Rosario and Martin, making it a 9-2 TJ  lead before Valencia mercifully ended the onslaught by grounding out to second.  It was then left to Toros closer Jason Urquidez to post a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth against the shell-shocked Puebla batsmen to end the game and send the Serie del Rey back to Estadio Gasmart.

Urquidez pitched the last 2.1 innings, allowing no hits and whiffing three Pericos for the win.  Gaudin was tagged with both a blown save and the loss for Puebla.  Both teams put up eleven hits on the night, with Chavez and Lopez each contributing two hits for Tijuana while Taveras and Amador split six hits for Puebla, five of them singles.  Lara scattered seven hits but let in just one run over 6.2 innings for the Pericos; Ramirez lasted into the sixth and had a tougher time, coughing up all 11 hits and both Puebla runs but five relievers (including Urquidez) allowed no hits or runs the rest of the way.  The game was delayed by rain for over an hour, stretching the contest past 12:30am local time.

After a travel day Tuesday, the two teams will convene Wednesday night in Tijuana at 10:30pm ET.  Game Seven, if needed, would be played Thursday, after which many players won't have time to either celebrate or drown their sorrows.  Training camps in the Mexican Pacific League are already opening for the coming winterball season...another reason to love baseball in Mexico.

Tijuana 9-11-1, PUEBLA 2-11-2 (Puebla leads series, 3 games to 2)
W-Urquidez (1-0). L-Gaudin (0-1). HR-Lopez (R). T-3:30. A-12,112.

Pericos outlast TJ, 6-3, title series tied at 1 game each

Dustin Martin hit his second homer in as many nights, a two-run shot that brought his Tijuana Toros to within a run of Puebla, but the Pericos added a pair of late runs and went on to beat the host team, 6-3, Thursday night to tie the Mexican League Championship Series at one game apiece.  An overflow crowd of 17,399 attended Game Two of the Serie el Rey at Tijuana's Estadio Gasmart.

Puebla got on the scoreboard in the top of the second inning when LMB batting champ Cesar Tapia, who's had a fairly quiet postseason, jolted a full-count delivery from Toros starter Barry Enright over the left field wall for a solo homer. The 1-0 score held until the top of the fourth, when the Pericos plated three runs. Daric Barton led the frame off with a triple, with Tapia singling him in. Subsequently, Alberto Carreon singled and Nyjer Morgan walked to load the bases with two out, bringing up Willy Taveras.  After Enright got him to whiff on the first pitch, Taveras lined the Pepperdine product's next offering to center field to bring in both Tapia and Carreon to make it a 4-0 lead for the Pericos.

Up to that point, Puebla starter Travis Blackley (pictured) was sailing along and the Aussie carried a one-hitter into the bottom of the fifth, when he walked Oscar Robles, wild-pitched Robles to second and then let up a run-scoring, ground-rule double to Carlos Valencia, who bounced a liner past Morgan and over the left field fence to ruin Blackley's shutout bid.  Things got a little warmer for Blackley and the Pericos in the sixth, when Martin followed up an Alex Romero single with his fourth homer of the playoffs to close the gap to 4-3.

That was as close as TJ would get, however, as Morgan singled in Tapia with a Puebla run in the top of the eighth off reliever Juan Sandoval and Barton touched Jason Urquidez with an RBI single in the ninth, driving in Jose Rodriguez with the final score of the game to clinch the win for the Parrots.  It was the first postseason run allowed by Urquidez in eight appearances after the Arizonan had saved 26 regular season games in 27 opportunities for the Toros.  The former Diamondbacks minor leaguer also pitched a scoreless inning for the victorious North in June's LMB All-Star Game at Estadio Monterrey.

Blackley got the win, allowing three runs over 5.2 innings on four hits and three walks, while Chad Gaudin picked up his fifth postseason save.  Enright took the loss, his second defeat in three playoff decisions, after giving up four runs on eight hits in 3.2 frames.  Tapia had three of Puebla's 13 hits, scoring three times and driving in two runs.  Tijuana collected just four hits on the night and now have just seven safeties over the first two games of the title tilt.

The two combatants will have the day off Friday before resuming the Serie el Rey with three games at Puebla's Estadio Hermanos Serdan Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  Puebla is seeking its fifth Liga pennant since first fielding an LMB team in 1942 and their first since 1986.  Former big leaguer Cory Snyder has managed the Pericos since the All-Star Break, when the team shockingly fired Matias Carrillo even though the team had the best record in the league at the time.  Carrillo is now a member of the Toros coaching staff under skipper Pedro Mere, who himself assumed the reins July 4 after Luis Sojo was canned.  This is the first time Tijuana has played for a Mexican League title.

Puebla 6-13-0, TIJUANA 3-4-0 (Series tied at 1 game each)
W-Blackley. L-Enright. SV-Gaudin. HR-Martin (T). T-2:46. A-17,399.