Four teams bunched one game apart atop LMB South

Quintana Roo Tigres infielder Brian Hernandez

While the Monterrey Sultanes were able to maintain their three-game lead in the Mexican League North Division over the past week, only one game separates the top four teams in the LMB South in what's been a very competitive start out the gate for what has been considered the weaker of the Liga's two eight-team divisions.

The Quintana Roo Tigres continued to surprise many observers by holding on to a tie for first with Yucatan in the South after a 12-6 win Sunday in Durango to lift their Spring 2018 record to 11-4.  Third baseman Brian Hernandez had five of the Tigres' 20 hits on the night, doubling twice and scoring two runs while driving in two more.  The Leones kept pace with an 8-3 victory over Union Laguna in Torreon as former MLB All-Star Freddy Garcia tossed five innings of four-hit ball for the victors, allowing one unearned run for Garcia's first LMB win in three decisions.

Sitting one game behind the leaders with identical 10-5 records are the Mexico City Diablos Rojos and Puebla Pericos.  The Red Devils completed a three-game home sweep of defending champion Tijuana with a 3-1 win over the defending champs Sunday.  Ricardo Valenzuela's two-run single with the bases loaded in the fourth inning broke a scoreless tie and starter Luis Niebla (4 IP, 0 R) combined with closer Jean Machi and two other relievers to make the lead stand.  Puebla stayed even with the Diablos by recording a 7-2 triumph in Monclova over their big-brother Acereros, thanks to Jesus Arredondo's three-run homer in the third and starter Rogelio Bernal's 6.2 innings of one-run pitching against his former teammates.  Oaxaca, Leon, Tabasco and Campeche are all under .500 and in danger of falling out of contention early in the shortened format, but the LMB South overall has fared better thus far in 2018 than they collectively showed last summer.

Monterrey struggled a bit on the road against South teams last week, dropping two of three games against Tabasco in Villahermosa before rebounding to win twice in Campeche, maintaining their three-game LMB North leadership with an 11-4 record after winning eight of their first nine games of the year.  The Sultanes missed their chance for a three-game sweep of the Piratas Sunday by dropping a 6-4 contest as Uriak Marquez had three hits with a run scored and another driven in for the hosts.  Even so, Monterrey is up three games on the only other North team with a winning record, the 8-7 Aguascalientes Rieleros, who rode a two-hit shutout from starter Guillermo Trujillo and four relievers.  Olmecas opener Alejandro Astorga (2 R, 4 H) pitched seven strong innings but lacked support in absorbing a tough loss.

Dos Laredos, Tijuana and Durango are all tied for third in the LMB North with 7-8 marks while Monclova sits a game behind in sixth at 6-9, but the season has gotten off to bad starts in Saltillo (5-10) and Union Laguna (3-12).  Mexican baseball has never been the most secure for managers and drumbeats in Torreon and Gomez Palacios for Algodoneros skipper Ramon Orantes' replacement only got louder after Sunday's home loss to Yucatan and Freddy Garcia.

None of the upcoming midweek series would make the menu at a five-star restaurant, but the most interesting set may be when Monclova visits Merida to take on Yucatan in a matchup between two the Liga's top teams.  Next weekend's fare looks more palatable, with longtime rivals Mexico City and Monterrey squaring off in the northern city for three games.


Ricky Alvarez off to torrid start in first year with Sultanes

Monterrey Sultanes first baseman Ricky Alvarez

It would be hard to blame first baseman Ricky Alvarez if he got off to a slow start with Monterrey this spring.  After all, the Sultanes are the Tijuana-born slugger's third Mexican League team since he was traded by Laguna to Yucatan late last June in a seven-player swap even though he was leading the LMB with 75 RBIs in 66 games and mentioned often in early MVP conversations.  Alvarez cooled off over 43 games with the Leones, playing home games in Merida's pitching-friendly Parque Kukulkan, and finished the 2017 campaign with a .311 average and 17 homers to go with his 105 RBIs to nudge out Saltillo's Rainel Rosario by one ribbie for the crown.

What ended up a solid season by any standard wasn't enough to keep Alvarez in Yucatan, however, as he was a centerpiece in a major offseason deal between the Leones and Sultanes that sent Alvarez and outfielder Francisco Lugo to Monterrey for shortstop Walter Ibarra and designated hitter Luis Juarez.  Rather than struggle to fit in with yet another new team or wonder what it takes to keep from having to change teams, the 5'11" 220-pounder is off to a torrid start for the Sultanes.  Alvarez hit three homers over the weekend in Campeche to take LMB lead with six roundtrippers in his first 15 games while his four RBIs at Estadio Nelson Barrera on Saturday and Sunday gave him 16 for Spring 2018 to put him in a five-way tie at the top in that category.   With a .410 average, the former Tigers farmhand ranks sixth on the batting derby table.   Now in his seventh Liga season after debuting with Monterrey back in 2012, Alvarez has LMB career totals of .293/82/365 over 552 games while going 50-of-69 on stolen base attempts.  In short, it doesn't appear to really matter whose uniform Ricky puts on because he's going to produce for that team.

Leading the LMB bat race through last weekend is Tijuana outfielder Maxwell Leon, a journeyman utility player who spent five years in the Detroit Tigers system before his 2011 LMB debut with Minatitlan, where he hit .341 with 14 homers and 43 RBIs in 57 games for the Petroleros.  While the Mexico City native didn't approached those numbers over his subsequent six seasons with four teams, Leon has proven to be a useful player who can plug a defensive hole while offering a .290 hitting average with some gap power.  Leon has taken the lead in the Mexican League batting race with a .515 average, 33 points higher than Durango's Yadir Drake and 53 points up on Drake's Generales teammate, newcomer Dustin Geiger.  Drake and Geiger are tied with Alvarez, Quintana Roo's Brian Hernandez and Monclova's Manny Rodriguez (who else?) for the RBI lead with 16 each while Tijuana's Justin Greene and Jeremias Pineda of Dos Laredos are knotted up at eight stolen bases in what is already shaping up to be a tight race for both 2018 seasons in Mexico.

Four Liga pitchers are carrying identical 3-0 records, but the hurler who's gotten the most out of the least amount of time on the mound is Yucatan middleman Jesus Barraza, who has yet to be scored upon over eight innings in seven appearances out of the Leones bullpen.  Monterrey's Marco Tovar has a 0.96 ERA in three starts (tops among LMB starters) while Puebla's Mitch Lamson's effectiveness has been an even 2.00 per nine innings.  Javier Solano of Monterrey, the fourth 3-0 hurler and a past Mexican Pacific League Pitcher of the Year, saw his ERA rise to 4.20 after being touched for four runs on ten hits in five innings at Tabasco last Wednesday.  Josh Lowey's 24 strikeouts for Monclova is one better than the 23 of Tiago Da Silva, who is in Durango's starting rotation after being one of the LMB's top closers in 2017.  Three men are tied with four saves apiece: Yucatan's Ronald Belisario, Anthony Carter of Aguascalientes and Campeche's Pedro Rodriguez.


Villanueva swats three homers in single game for Padres

San Diego Padres third baseman Christian Villanueva

Third baseman Christian Villaneuva's impressive major league debut for San Diego after a September callup last year (.344 with four homers and 7 RBIs in 12 games) wasn't enough to keep the Padres from reacquiring former first-round draft pick Chase Headley to play some third base at Petco Park in 2018 along with incumbent starter Cory Spangenberg, another onetime first round pick who hit .264 with 13 homers and 11 steals in 2017.  The crowded situation at the hot corner carried over throughout spring training, when there was some speculation that Villanueva might be sent back down to AAA El Paso (for whom the Guadalajara product was .296/20/86 over 109 contests while splitting time between third and first base).

Villanueva, who has appeared in two winterball seasons with Obregon (winning BBM's Most Valuable Player award in 2015-16 for his play with the Yaquis), ended up sticking with the parent club and has been the starter at third for most games thus far.  While he's had his ups and downs, like most rookies, Villanueva solidified his standing by belting three homers in a home game against Colorado on April 4 as the Padres topped the Rockies, 8-4.   With his trio of longballs, Villanueva became the fourth Mexican-born player to whack three homers in a single MLB game, joining Erubiel Durazo (2003, 2005), Vinny Castilla (1999, 2002) and Roberto Avila (1951).  For the record, he went deep with two homers off Colorado starter Kyle Freeland in the second and fourth innings while touching Antonio Sentazela with a three-run blast in the seventh.  All three roundtrippers were to left field at Petco Park, one of the hardest ballparks to homer at in MLB.

After the game, San Diego manager Andy Green sagely allowed as to how Villanueva's outburst would probably earn a little more playing time.  Word does travel and pitchers are now working the 26-year-old a lot more carefully than they might have and the subsequent five games have seen him go 3-for-18 at the plate with eight strikeouts to drop his batting average from .429 to .240.  Still, no matter what Villanueva does the rest of the season (or his career, for that matter), he'll have had a night that precious few of his countrymen have experienced at the highest level of the game.

Solano sharp in Aguilas win, title series tied after four games

Javier Solano (pictured) took a shutout into the seventh inning and Jason Bourgeois collected three hits, including a key two-run single, as the Mexicali Aguilas tied the Mexican Pacific League championship series after four games with a 6-1 home win over Los Mochis on Wednesday.  For the second night in a row, a full house crowd of 17,000 was on hand in Mexicali's Estadio B'Air.

MEXICALI 6-12-0, Los Mochis 1-6-2

Mexicali broke the ice by scoring a run in the bottom of the second inning.   Regular season bat king Luis Juarez led off with a single off Caneros starter Luis Niebla.  After After Agustin Murillo flew out to J.C. Linares, a Yordanys Linares (no relation) fly ball to left was botched by Eugenio Velez, resulting in Juarez making it to third base and Linares the batter ending up on second.  Xorge Carrillo then hit a grounder back to Niebla, who made the throw to first for the out as Juarez scored from third.

The Aguilas carried their narrow 1-0 lead into the bottom of the fifth, where they put up three more runs on the board.  Niebla was still on the hill for Los Mochis and had pitched well to that point.  Ramon Rios led off for Mexicali with a grounder to third that Juan Carlos Gamboa was able to make the stop but couldn't get the throw to first in time as Rios beat out the infield single.  Chris Roberson followed by bunting in front of the plate and Niebla plucked the ball off the ground and threw it into the outfield.  By the time the ball was relayed back, Rios was on third and Roberson occupied second.  Jason Bourgeois stepped up and lined a two-run single to center, bringing in Rios and Roberson to put the hosts up by three.  Yuniesky Betancourt then drilled a double to right and the speedy Bourgeois motored in from first to bring the score to 4-0.

That spelled the end for Niebla, who was pulled for middleman Jon Sintes.  A 30-year-old West Florida product who pitched for Tabasco last summer, Sintes went on to record three outs without further damage. The Caneros responded with their first score of the night in the top of the sixth.  Velez led off by doubling to left off Solano, who was still working on a whitewash.  Velez completed the atonement for his second inning defensive miscue by roaring in from second on Isaac Rodriguez' single up the middle, beating Roberson's throw from center and plating the run.  Solano retired the next three batter to end the threat, then got the first two outs in the seventh before walking Sebastian Valle.  Aguilas skipper Roberto Vizcarra came out, waved in Efren Delgado from the bullpen and Solano walked off the mound to cheers from the hometown crowd. Delgado got Gamboa to ground to second for the final out.

Mexicali added another run in the seventh when C.J. Retherford lined a double to center off Sintes to score Betancourt, and the Aguilas went up 6-1 in the eighth as Carrillo, Rios and Roberson hit consecutive two-out singles, with Robo's safety driving in Carrillo.  Rios tried scoring on the same play but was nailed at the plate when Castro threw a strike from center to Valle, who applied the tag for the frame's final out.  

Solano pitched 6.2 innings for the win, allowing one run on five hits.  The former Dodgers minor leaguer has had a tough posteason for the Eagles, but looked good Wednesday in going to 2-3 in the playoffs.  Niebla allowed four runs in as many innings on seven hits in absorbing his second loss in four January decisions, but two of the runs were unearned and walked none as 45 of the Rockies farrmhand's 65 pitches went for strikes. Bourgeois finished with three of the Aguilas' 12 hits, driving in two runs and scoring once.  Saul Soto continued swinging the hot bat for the Caneros with the only two-hit game in the Mochis order.

Game Five is set for Thursday night in Mexicali at 7:30PM PST (0330 UTC).  Julian Arballo will get the start for Los Mochis while Miguel Pena will open the game on the mound for the Aguilas.

Mexicali, Mochis win romps, both go up 2 games to 0

The Mexicali Aguilas chased Hermosillo starter Travis Blackley to the showers with an eight-run outburst in the bottom of the third inning en route to a 16-6 manhandling of the Naranjeros at Estadio B'Air Thursday night in their Mexican Pacific League semifinal series.  In the other MexPac Final Four matchup in Los Mochis, a three-run homer from Saul Soto (pictured) served as the centerpiece of the Caneros' seven-run seventh in their 14-2 blowout of Culiacan in Estadio Emilio Ibarra Almada.

Both the Aguilas and Caneros now lead their series, 2 games to 0, heading into Friday's Game Three contests in Hermosillo and Culiacan, respectively.


LOS MOCHIS 14-17-1, Culiacan 2-10-2

Soto's homer was one of four Los Mochis longballs served up by three different Tomateros pitchers in the fateful seventh as the Caneros broke open what had been a competitive game.  Mochis scored the first run of the contest on a wild play that began when Phillies farmhand Leandro Castro bunted down the third base line, drawing a hurried throw from Culiacan's Issmael Salas that sailed into right field foul territory, allowing Castro to streak all the way to second.  He kept on going after rightfielder Sebastian Elizalde made a poor relay throw back toward the infield, scampering around third and coming in to score on a play even Ty Cobb would've smiled at in approval.

The Caneros scored twice more in the third to go ahead, 3-0.  Tomateros starter Zack Dodson intentionally walked Isaac Rodriguez to load the bases so he could face MLB vet Lew Ford, who poked a grounder into left field to score Sebastian Valle from third.  Culiacan ended Mochis' shutout bid in the top of the seventh, when reliever Fabian Williamson gave up a Salas homer to left, bringing the visitors to within two runs.  Then came the bottom of the seventh, when Juan Carlos Gamboa (solo), Eugenio Velez (solo), Soto (three-run) and Yosmany Guerra (solo) all homered as the Caneros bashed their way to a 10-1 advantage and the rout was on.  Culiacan did score a run in the eighth when Joey Meneses doubled and came in on Ramiro Pena's single, but Los Mochis put another four on the board to put the Tomateros away.  J.C. Linares stroked a bases-loaded triple to deliver the coup de grace.

The Caneros' 17-hit attack in front of another SRO home crowd of 11,372 should not obsure the standout work of Mochis starter Luis Niebla, who went to 2-0 in the postseason by tossing six innings of shutout ball, scattering five hits and a pair of walks.  Dodson took the loss for Culiacan to fall to 0-2 in the playoffs.  The former Pirates prospect didn't pitch badly (two earned runs in five entradas of work) and was spared from what came next.  The Caneros outscored Culiacan, 19-2, over two games in Los Mochis.


MEXICALI 16-21-0, Hermosillo 6-13-0

Mexicali sent eleven men to the plate in the third inning and put eight runs on the board to take a 9-0 lead and the hits just kept on coming the rest of the game as the Aguilas bombed Hermosillo, 16-6.

Naranjeros starter Travis Blackley was touched for a C.J. Retherford homer run in the bottom of the second as Mexicali took a 1-0 lead.  Blackley was chased in the third after allowing three runs on four hits in the third, including a two-out, two-run single from Xorge Carrrillo off the last pitch the ex-MLBer threw for the night.  Reliever Hector Galvan fared no better, eventually giving up a three-run double to Ramon Rios, who then came in on a Chris Roberson double for the final run of the inning. The toll?  Eight Mexicali runs on six hits, one walk, one hit bastman and two wild pitches.  From that point on, it was only a matter of time.

Mexicali put up three more runs in both the fourth (keyed by a Carrillo two-run double) and fifth (keyed by a Yordanys Linares two-run double) to go up 15-0 before Hermosillo showed their only sign of life by plating six runs in the sixth as Dodgers minor leaguer Julian Leon contributed a pinch-hit two-run homer, but it was academic by that point.  Linares went 4-for-6 for Mexicali while Carrillo had three hits and four RBIs.  Hector Velazquez got the win in his first start for the Aguilas, tossing five shutout innings before being roughed up for five runs in the Hermosillo sixth.  Maybe with a 15-run lead, he let up a little.  Blackley took the loss for his third defeat in as many playoff starts for the Naranjeros this winter.  A sellout crowd of 17,000 witness the onslaught in Mexicali.

In a circuit that historically has been known as a pitcher-friendly league, Thursday night's MexPac semis featured a combined 38 runs on 61 hits.

Caneros blank Venados, 3-0; defending champs facing elimination

Luis Niebla and MLB vet Sergio Romo combined to spin a five-hit shutout as the Los Mochis Caneros defeated the Mazatlan Venados, 3-0, Wednesday night in Mazatlan to take a commanding 3-games-to-0 lead in their Mexican Pacific League first round playoff series.  One more loss would close out a first-round loss for the defending league and Caribbean Series champions.  Elsewhere in LMP playoff action, Culiacan outlasted Hermosillo, 8-7, to take a 2-games-to-1-lead in their best-of-7 set while Mexicali went one up in their series with top seed Navojoa by slipping past the Mayos, 2-3, Wednesday in the border city.  Game Four for all three series will be played Thursday night.


Los Mochis 3-10-0, MAZATLAN 0-5-2

Former Twins and Orioles outfielder Lew Ford's third inning double plated Eugenio Velez with the only run Los Mochis would need as the Caneros went on to whitewash the defending champs, 3-0, in front of 9,761 fans at Mazatlan's Estadio Teodoro Mariscal.  The Venados now face the daunting task of winning four straight games to win the series, although a couple of wins might be enough to advance them to the semifinals as the so-called "lucky loser" entry.

The 40-year-old Ford (pictured), who's spent most of the past four summers playing independent ball with Long Island of the Atlantic League since he last appeared in MLB with Baltimore in 2012, went on to put up a 4-for-5 night at the play for Mochis, added an RBI in the top of the ninth one inning after Saul Soto's single brought in J.C. Linares with the Caneros' second score of the night.  Soto and Jesus Arredondo each had two singles for Mochis.  Catcher Erick Rodriguez, not known for his bat, had three of Mazatlan's five hits while Cyle Hankerd and Carlos Munoz each singled but only one Venados baserunner reached second base all game.

It was a game for pitchers, however, as Niebla and Romo combined for eight strikeouts and walked only two Venados batsmen.  Niebla went eight innings for the win, allowing four hits and whiffing seven, while Romo picked up his second save of the series by pitching a scoreless ninth in his effort to draw an offer from an MLB organization as a free agent after nine years, three World Series titles and an All-Star Game appearance with the San Francisco Giants.  Walter Silva pitched in lard luck for Mazatlan, letting in no earned runs (Velez reached base on an error in the third) and scattering six hits and two walks over six innings of work in a very creditable start.


Culiacan 8-11-0, HERMOSILLO 7-9-2

Unlike the Los Mochis-Mazatlan game, pitchers didn't have a lot of say in Culiacan's 8-7 win in Hermosillo Wednesday night with a sellout crowd of 16,329 clicking the turnstiles at Estadio Sonora.  Not that there weren't a lot of pitchers involved, as the two teams combined to send 14 hurlers to the mound while 15 runs and 20 hits were piled up on the night.

A Joey Meneses single off Hermosillo starter Juan Pablo Oramas drove in Maxwell Leon (son of former MLB pitcher Maximino Leon) with the game's first run for Culiacan in the top of the first inning, followed by a Ramiro Pena sacrifice fly that brought Ryan Lollis in from third for the Tomateros' second run.  Efren Navarro's homer off Culiacan's Patrick McCoy put the Naranjeros on the board, but Culiacan scored twice in the third on Issmael Salas' two-run homer and three more in the top of the fifth when Jose Manuel Rodriguez socked a two-run homer of his own and Salas singled in Meneses to make it a 7-1 Tomateros lead.  Then things got interesting, as Hermosillo batted around the order and scored five runs of their own in the bottom of the fifth, with O'Koyea Dickson's three-run longball off reliever Juan Ramon Noriega's third pitch the key blow.  Pena singled in Lollis in the top of the sixth to make it an 8-6 Culiacan lead and while Hermosillo scored once more in the bottom of the seventh, they couldn't draw even as the Tomateros hung on for the win to go up 2-games-to-1 in the series.

David Goforth pitched two scoreless innings in relief for Culiacan and was credited with the win.  McCoy was pulled after allowing the first three Hermosillo batters reach base in the fifth (all scored).  Goforth was one of seven relievers trotted out by Tomateros manager Che Reyes.  Oramas, who led the LMP in earned-run average much of the regular season, absorbed the loss for the Naranjeros by giving up five runs in 4+ frames himself.  Culiacan now leads the series, 2 games to 1.


MEXICALI 3-7-0, Navojoa 2-6-2

Veteran centerfielder Chris Roberson's three-run homer in the second inning held up as Mexicali went on to a 3-2 win over regular season champ Navojoa with 12,387 onlookers at La Nida (The Nest) in the border city.  The win puts the Aguilas up 2-games-to-1 in their first-round series.

MexPac batting champ Luis Juarez opened the bottom of the second with a double off Navojoa starter Zack Dodson, who then got Xorge Carrillo to line out to second and struck out Jon Del Campo to come to within one out of escaping the frame unscathed.  Dodson walked Ramon Rios, however, sending Roberson to the plate.  After watching the first pitch for a called strike, Roberson lofted a fly ball over the head of Mayos left fielder Christian Zazueta that landed in the seats to put the Eagles up 3-0.  It was an atonement of sorts for Roberson after the 2014 Caribbean Series MVP committed two errors on one fly ball in Mexicali's 7-6 knucklebiter win in Navojoa on Monday.  Navojoa came back in the top of the fifth when Alan Sanchez doubled in Quincy Latimore for one run and Fernando Flores scored from third on Zazueta's groundout, but that would be all the scoring for the night as five relievers would follow Mexicali starter Efren Delgado to post zeros over the Mayos' final four innings.

Delgado ended up with the win after going five frames and allowing both Mayos runs on three hits, striking out seven batters and walking just one.  Dodson took the loss for Navojoa, throwing 91 pitches over 5.1 innings, allowing seven hits (including Roberson's dinger) and walking three.  Jake Sanchez' dominance from the bullpen during the regular season has carried over into the playoffs as well, with the Californian sealing the win with 1.1 unblemished innings for his second save of the series.  Sanchez has now allowed one earned run (and four walks) in 34 innings over 32 combined trips from the pen for manager Roberto Vizcarra's Aguilas.