YAQUIS RECORD AT 15-2, SWING A PAIR OF DEALS

Felix Perez now plays for Obregon

    Recent arrival Felix Perez socked a pair of homers, including a two-run bomb, while Moises Gutierrez added a solo blast as the Obregon Yaquis outlasted the Navojoa Mayos, 4-3, Sunday in Mexican Pacific League action before empty seats at Estadio Yaquis in Obregon. The Yaquis are one of three LMP teams (along with Hermosillo and Navojoa) ordered by Sonora's Secretary of Health Enrique Clausen to disallow fans in the stands after pandemic-related health protocols were ignored in several ballparks on opening weekend.

    The win extended Obregon's record to 15-2 for the first half as the Yaquis stayed three-and-a-half games ahead of second-place Hermosillo (11-5) and third-place Monterrey (11-6), who both won their games on Sunday. Obregon features a strong pitching staff paced by starter Octavio Acosta (3-0 with a LMP-best 2.12 ERA) and closer Miguel Aguilar (7-of-7 in saves and a 2.35 ERA). While the Yaquis batting order won't remind anyone of the 1927 Yankees, they're hitting well enough to win while catcher Sebastian Valle (.339, 4 homers) and outfielder Roberto Lopez (.306/3/12) have been the timeliest hitters.

    Defending LMP home run and RBI champion Dariel Alvarez is off to a hot start for Jalisco, as the Cuban outfielder leads the circuit with a .400 average. Culiacan's Sebastian Elizalde, who hit .308 with 10 homers and 21 steals last winter, leads the Mex Pac with seven homers and 22 ribbies after 17 games while Alonzo Harris has been Obregon's (and the loop's) best base stealer with 10 swipes in 12 tries. Besides the Yaquis' Acosta and Aguilar, the early pitching leaders include Hermosillo starter Juan Pablo Oramas with four wins and 23 strikeouts plus Oramas' Naranjeros moundmate Heriberto Ruelas, who has five holds in nine appearances and has yet to allow a run in 7.2 innings pitched.

    With the season only two weeks old, teams are already making deals to strengthen their rosters. One of the most noteworthy saw Monterrey loaning holdout outfielder Felix Perez to Obregon. A Cuba native who played three winters for his hometown Isla de la Juventud Toronjeros before spending five years in the Cincinnati Reds system, the 35-year-old also played in Japan and has put in five summers in the Mexican League with both the Sultanes and Aguascalientes.

    Perez was a member of Monterrey's first Mex Pac team last winter and one of the club's top hitters, leading the team with a .270 average, 48 RBIs and 36 runs scored while finishing second with 10 homers. However, Perez decided to sit out this LMP season after failing to come to terms with the Sultanes. He decided to report to Obregon and is already making an impact, belting a pair of homers and driving in three runs Sunday in their 4-3 win over Navojoa.

    Not content to coast on their league lead, Obregon also traded veteran utilityman Maxwell Leon to Mazatlan for journeyman infielder Issmael Salas. Son of former MLB reliever Maximino Leon, the younger Leon played five years (2006-10) in the Detroit system before embarking on a nine-year run in the Mexican League with Minatitlan in 2011. This will be his 15th winter in the LMP, where the 36-year-old has played every position but catcher and pitcher while batting .280 over 532 games. He had yet to appear for the Yaquis.

    Salas primarily plays third base but is proficient at all four infield positions. A former Cubs farmhand who has played solely in Mexico since 2009, the Tijuana-born 38-year-old made his LMP debut with Guasave in 2005-06. Obregon will be his eighth team in the loop. Salas has a career .267 winterball average and was batting .400 after six games with the Venados prior to the trade.

    And in Guadalajara, the likelihood of Roberto Osuna finally pitching in a game for the Jalisco Charros increased dramatically after the 25-year-old closer was waived by the Houston Astros last week. Osuna appeared in just four games for the defending American League champions before an elbow injury shelved him for the rest of the shortened 2020 season. There had been concerns that he'd require Tommy John surgery but instead has chosen to rehab in the MLB offseason. After clearing waivers, the righty is now a free agent who will likely need to pitch in the Mex Pac to demonstrate his recovery to potential big league employers. Osuna is reportedly due to begin pitching for the Charros on November 20.

TIGRES, VALENZUELAS TO REMAIN IN CANCUN FOR 2021

Fernando Valenzuela: Now and Then

  After weeks of speculation that the Quintana Roo Tigres were on their way out of Cancun (with the border city of San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora thought to be the legacy franchise's destination), the Mexican League announced over the weekend that the 12-time champions will stay put in Cancun.

    An announcement from the LMB office in Mexico City says that Liga president Horacio de la Vega met last week with “the directors of the Tigres de Quintana Roo, the Government of the State of Quintana Roo and the Municipality of Benito Juárez to ensure the team stays in Cancun.” Jose Alfredo Otero of El Fildeo writes that both de la Vega and team owner Fernando Valenzuela verified at an Assembly of Presidents meeting last Friday that the Tigres will stay put in the resort city for the 2021 season.

    Ever since buying the Tigres from Carlos Peralta in February 2017, Valenzuela and his wife, Linda Burgos, have seemingly been beset by one issue after another while struggling to keep the franchise viable on the field and at the gate as well as with the banks. Three rocky years were followed by 2020's canceled season, which seemed to tip the scales toward the Valenzuelas seeking to relocate the team in greener pastures.

    There have long been calls to return the Tigres to their original home of Mexico City, where their longstanding rivalry with the Diablos Rojos would be revived in closer quarters, and there were rumors that there was interest in Veracruz as a possible landing spot. Instead, San Luis Rio Colorado emerged seemingly out of the blue as the team's destination. The city of 200,000 sitting on the Arizona border would be one of the Mexican League's smallest markets while never having hosted a team in either the LMB or the winter Mexican Pacific League.

    On the other hand, San Luis is a baseball hotbed in which the city's ballpark has undergone a refurbishing that more than doubled its capacity to 7,000 spectators. Local and state governments pledged their support for the team moving there, San Luis' closer proximity than Cancun to the Valenzuelas' home in Los Angeles was seen as a positive, as was a natural travel partner for the Tijuana Toros, the Liga's most geographically-remote franchise. As recently as Friday, Puro Beisbol editor Fernando Ballesteros wrote that the Valenzuelas were working to move the Tigres to San Luis, although nothing was official.

Estadio Beto Avila, Cancun

   Instead, it appears that Cancun will have another chance to better support Class AAA baseball after being a tepid host over the previous 14 years. The Tigres moved to the resort city from Puebla in 2007. While there's nothing to indicate that local interest will increase enough for the club to break even financially at the gate, state subsidies expected to disappear in 2021 may have been revived during talks involving de la Vega and the Valenzuelas with government officials. Money talks, whatever the source.

    It was a momentous week for the former National League Cy Young Award-winner. Besides deciding the fate of his ballclub, Valenzuela (who celebrated his 60th birthday Sunday) was given a National Sports Award for his contributions to Mexican baseball, both inside and outside the country. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will make a formal presentation on November 20 as part of events commemorating the Mexican Revolution, in which hostilities officially ceased on November 20, 1920.

LMB: RIELEROS TO STAY PUT, EXPANSION TEAM TO VERACRUZ

Veracruz won LMB title in 2012

    Another team that will be staying put is the Aguascalientes Rieleros. After word came out that the Tigres were hoping to move to San Luis Rio Colorado, rumors heated up that the Railroaders would be making a one-way trip to Veracruz for the 2021 season. An LMB team first appeared in Aguascalientes in 1975, when (ironically) the Veracruz Rojos del Aguila moved west from the port city. While it took just three years to win a Liga pennant, that remains the only title the city has ever won and the current franchise is the third incarnation of the Rieleros after the first two versions moved to Puebla in 1999 and Nuevo Laredo in 2008.

    The current iteration dates to 2012 (when the Tecolotes returned to the city of 800,000) but none of the three Rieleros teams have had much money to work with and crowds at 6,500-seat Parque Alberto Romo Chavez were never large enough to create enough revenues to build a contending team there since the earliest days. The cancellation of the 2020 Mexican League season meant no revenues coming in for a team already swimming in a sea of red ink, making them a target for potential buyers.

    Veracruz has seen its own share of Liga teams come and go since the circuit started in 1925, although the city and state could be considered Mexico's version of Florida in that baseball players are historically more plentiful than baseball fans. Still, business owners there have wanted to bring a team back to the Gulf Coast city ever since owner Jose Antonio Mansur moved the latest version of the Eagle Reds to Nuevo Laredo in 2018. The league office announcement that no team will move anywhere prior to the 2021 season put an end to a Veracruz pursuit of the Rieleros or any other vulnerable LMB franchise (and there are several).

Estadio Beto Avila, Veracruz

    However, a surprising announcement from the LMB put Veracruz at the front of the line in the future. De la Vega's office said that a letter of intent has been “successfully submitted” by a group of Veracruz investors seeking an expansion team. While no timetable has been given for such a move, that would increase the number of Liga teams from the current 16, the announcement said the LMB is “enthusiastic about the possible new addition of the Veracruz Aguilas as an expansion team in such an important and historic city for Mexican baseball.” The original Rojo del Aguilas were formed in 1903 and teams using that name have won six LMB pennants over the years, with Hall of Famer Martin Dihigo hitting and pitching Veracruz to back-to-back titles in 1937 and 1938.

    The statement concludes, “The Mexican Baseball League expects Veracruz fans can soon return to the iconic Parque Deportivo Universitario Beto Avila.”

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.

Culiacan beats Obregon in 19, tops LMP standings

The Culiacan Tomateros put four runs on the scoreboard in the top of the 19th inning and held host Obregon scoreless in the bottom of the frame to come away with a marathon 7-3 win over the Yaquis Sunday night.  The triumph bumped Culiacan’s Mexican Pacific League record to 14-9, good enough for a one-game lead over 13-10 Jalisco in the LMP first-half standings.  Obregon dropped deeper into last place by falling to 8-15, two games in back of seventh-place Navojoa.

Sunday night’s contest began at 5:13PM local time when Obregon starter David Reyes pitched a high ball to Tomateros leadoff man D’Arby Myers for ball one.  The two teams played scoreless ball until the bottom of the third, when the Yaquis’ Niko Vazquez rapped a bases-loaded double off Culiacan opener Edgar Gonzalez to give Obregon a 3-0 cushion.  The Tomateros chipped away and tied the game by plating single runs in the fourth, fifth and ninth innings (the latter on an Andy Wilkins sacrifice fly to left that scored Sebastian Elizalde from third to even the score at 3-3).

The two teams went on to play the equivalent of a full second game, going another nine innings without bothering the scorer before bringing their deadlock into the top of the 19th entrada.  Jose Orozco and Josh Fuentes both singled to lead off against Obregon reliever Carlos de Leon, who was then replaced by Martin Sotelo.  Marco Guzman Jr.’s sacrifice bunt moved Orozco and Fuentes up to leave first base open, leading Sotelo to intentionally walk Alfredo Amezaga, loading the bases with Maxwell Leon due up.  Whatever strategy was behind the move was rendered moot when Leon smoked his fourth double of the season to bring in Orozco and Fuentes in with the go-ahead runs.  Sotelo then intentionally walked Myers to pitch to Alexis Wilson, whose liner up the middle scored both Amezaga and Leon to give the Tomateros a 7-3 advantage.

It was then left to David Gutierrez, Culiacan’s eighth pitcher (the Yaquis used nine), to close out the contest.  When Gutierrez induced Sergio Contreras to fly out to Elizalde in right, ending the game, the clock read nine minutes to midnight, or 6 hours, 38 minutes after Reyes’ opening pitch.  Myers and Elizalde each had three hits between 18 combined plate appearances.  Leo Heras and Alex Liddi had three singles apiece for Obregon.  Francisco Rios got the win for the Tomateros, tossing shutout ball for the 17th and 18th innings, while De Leon was the Yaquis hard-luck loser after pitching six scoreless stanzas before allowing those two leadoff singles in the 19th.  A crowd of 9,111 was on hand at Estadio Nuevo Yaquis at game time, but it can be safely assumed that the vast majority were long-gone by game’s end.

MEXICAN PACIFIC LEAGUE Standings (as of November 6, 2017)

Culiacan 14-9, Jalisco 13-10, Hermosillo 12-11, Mazatlan 12-11, Mexicali 12-11, Los Mochis 11-12, Navojoa 10-13, Obregon 8-15.  

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MEXICAN PACIFIC LEAGUE Batting Leaders

Batting-Jeremias Pineda (MAZ) .394, Runs-Many Rodriguez (JAL) 18, Homers-Bryce Brentz (HMO) 6, RBIs-Manny Rodriguez (JAL) 24, Stolen Bases-Jeremias Pineda (MAZ) 13.

MEXICAN PACIFIC LEAGUE Pitching Leaders

Wins-Danny Rodriguez (CUL), Tyler Kane (NAV) and Mitch Lively (MAZ) 3, ERA-Danny Rodriguez (CUL) 0.98, Strikeouts-Cesar Vargas (HMO) 27, Saves-Ryan Kussmaul (MXI) 10, WHIP-Danny Rodriguez (CUL) 0.65.

Saltalamacchia signs with Jalisco, Japhet Amador arrives

The Jalisco Charros have signed MLB veteran catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia to a contract. The 32-year-old Saltalamacchia made his big league debut with Atlanta in 2007, hitting .284 over 47 games for the Braves before being part of a seven-man trade in which Atlanta also sent shortstop Elvis Andrus and pitcher Neftali Perez to Texas for first baseman Mark Teixeira and pitcher Ron Mahay.  

While Saltalamacchia never became an All-Star like Andrus and Perez subsequently did for the Rangers, the 2003 first round draft pick (for the Braves) did go on to be a useful player for eleven years, a passable defensive catcher and a guy who didn’t hit for a high average but reached double figures in homers six times and 10+ doubles eight times.  The 6’4” Floridian socked 55 longballs between 2011-13 for Boston, where he was the starting catcher for the 2013 world champion Red Sox.  In all, Saltalamacchia has a .233 career batting average in the majors with 110 homers and 381 RBIs over 890 career games.

Saltalamacchia spent part of the 2017 season in the Blue Jays organization, hitting .040 in Toronto and .162 with AAA Buffalo before he was released in late June.  He played his first two games for the Charros in a weekend home series with Navojoa, going 2-for-6 with a homer and three RBIs.  

Jalisco was not exactly suffering behind the plate, with All-Star Carlos Rodriguez and defensive standout Gabriel Gutierrez already on the roster, but February’s Caribbean Series will be held in Guadalajara and Charros owner Armando Navarro (who normally operates in hyperdrive anyway) really wants his team in it as the Mex Pac champion.

In addition to Saltalamacchia, slugger Japhet Amador returned from his second season with Japan’s Rakuten Golden Eagles.  The Mulege Giant made his 2017-18 debut Saturday against Navojoa, socking a homer and double in four at-bats before singling and scoring twice against the Mayos Sunday.

LMB Presidents meeting in Leon; is Durango on agenda?

The Mexican League’s Assembly of Presidents has scheduled their monthly get-together in Leon, Guanajuato this week.  While discussions regarding the proposed move to two 66-game schedules plus playoffs in 2018 will take center stage and may become protracted, it’ll be hard for Liga majordomos to ignore the latest activity going on in Durango.

If you’ve been following that story, you’re already aware of how the Generales (along with the Leon Bravos) entered the LMB last year as replacements for the Carmen Delfines and Reynosa Broncos, respectively, and immediately ran into problems.  Both teams had to play as road warriors for the first month of the season while their ballparks were undergoing late-starting renovations.  The difficulties didn’t end after the two clubs began playing at home.  In Durango, the local fans actually supported the team reasonably well as the Generales finished in the middle of the LMB pack in average attendance despite a last-place finish in the LMB North, but cash flow was a season-long problem as players went unpaid more than once over the course of the schedule.  Several key players were sold off and the 2017 season was by and large a disaster.

As a result, new league president Javier Salinas (along with the Assembly) in late September ordered the Generales to take 2018 off so they could get their financial house in order for another try in 2019.  That move was met by defiance from Durango state governor Jose Rosas Aizpuro Torres, who said in effect that the Generales ain’t goin’ nowhere and that funding would be secured for next year, with new investors to replace overmatched team owner Virgilio Ruiz at the top of the pyramid.  

On top of that, the team swung an October 25 trade with the Tabasco Olmecas in which pitcher Adrian Garza and first baseman Jesus Rivera went to Villahermosa in exchange for outfielder Rogelio Noris and pitcher Hubbie Pellegaud.  October trades do happen but at least scribe at the Puro Beisbol site asked logically what a team that’s been shut down for a year is doing making trades?

It promises to be an interesting three days in Leon this week.

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