Sports Radio Service

February 4

By Lewis Rubman

Mexico (3-1) 7 13 0

Venezuela (3-1) 6 10 2

HATO REY, PUERTO RICO–I never tire of quoting (although people who know must get tired of hearing) the saying the Cubans have about our shared national pastime, “La bola es redonda y viene en caja cuadrada,” “the ball is round and comes in a square box.” The Cubans didn’t make it to this year’s Caribbean Series, but their refrain sure did. Just look at the games Venezuela played last night and this afternoon.

Last night, the Lara Cardinals squeaked past Puerto Rico in a game that had been tied at one through nine innings and won in the tenth, aided by the offensive-friendly extra inning runner placement rule and a questionable call involving an arcane rule.

This afternoon, they were being blown out by Mexico’s Tomateros (Tomato Growers) of Culiacán until the Venezuelans provided some blow back of their own. After last night´s game, Venezuela’s manager, Luis Ugueto, told the press corps that his team’s poor offensive performance was due to the strong winds that keep the ball in the park. An intregral part of Venezuela’s comeback today was a wind blown three run homer by Carlos Rivero in the sixth inning.

Mexico, playing as the visitors, started the scoring early. It was their lead off hitter, Rico Noel, who scored the first run first run, driven in by Joey Meneses’s single. Their hits came off Mayckol Gauipe, the Cardinal starter, who lasted a mere three and a third innings and managed to give up six runs, all earned, on nine hits in that time. Rico and Meneses teamed up in the third to double Mexico’s lead. This time it was Meneses’s ground out that brought his teammate home.

The fourth, however, was when Mexico celebrated its version of the Book of Genesis. They scored a quartet of runs in the big inning. With one down, Alí Solís singled to right and reached third moments later when Juan Carlos Gamboa also singled, taking second on the throw.

Rico’s two bagger, another hit to right, doubled Mexico’s lead to four. Noel then lit out for third, which he stole, and kept on running when catcher Alixón Suárez threw the ball into left field, Mexico now was up 5-0 and showed no signs of stopping its advance.

Andrés Pérez relieved Guaipe after the latter walked Ramiro Peña, but that was the last run Mexico was to score this afternoon. It was the only one Pérez surrendered in his three and two-thirds innings on the mound, and Francisley Bueno shut the Tomateros out in the game’s two remaining frame

Singles by Alexis Amarista and René Reyes set the scene for Carlos Rivera. His hit, something between a fly and liner, kept carrying and carrying until it flew over the left field fence, putting Venezuela back in the game, 7-3. Although shaken, Mexico still was in charge.

Culiacán’s left handed starter and the eventual winner, Antony Vázquez, left after six innings. His successors, Gerardo Sánchez and Santiago Gutiérrez, each working an inning, held the Redbirds hitless and scoreless. But disaster struck for the Mexicans in the bottom of the ninth.

Mario Meza, who had been untouchable in his previous, two-out, relief appearance, came in to close out the game for Mexico. He disposed of Carlos Rivero, he of the three run homer in sixth. Adonis García and Angel Reyes laced a pair of singles, and things began to look dicey.

Still, Meza got pinch hitter Oscar Angulo to line out to left. After all, cardiac closers still are closer. But not this time. Ali Castillo pinch hit for Suárez and scored García with a single that moved Reyes up to second.

That was it for Meza. Six foot four inch, 250 pound Alberto Baldonado from Panama assumed pitching duties for the team from northern Mexico. He fulfilled them with more excitement than finesse. After yielding a two run double to César Valera that brought Venezuela within a tally of tying the game, Meza struck out Amarista, clinching a playoff berth for Mexico and clearing the way for the game between Colombia and Puerto Rico that should start in about fifteen minutes.

February 4

By Lewis Rubman

Puerto Rico (1-2) 2 8 3
Venezuela (3-0) 3 3 0 ten innings

HATO REY, PUERTO RICO–The game that began last night at 8:06 Atlantic Time may well go down in history as one of the best ever played in the Caribbean Series. It also might be among the most controversial. The two, of course, are not mutually exclusive.

Going into the ninth inning, Adalberto Flores, Bradin Hagens, and NIcholas Padilla had limited Venezuela to one hit. But Venezuela had parlayed that fourth inning double by Alí Castillo into a run, and the resulting 1-0 lead had held up until the eighth, when Angelo Palumbo, their starting pitcher, walked Jan Hérnandez, who was sacrificed over to second by Roberto Peña, scored on Henry Ramos’s automatic double.

It wasn’t as though the team representing the island nation lacked scoring opportunities. They hit into inning ending double plays in the second, third, and fifth frames. In one of them the bases had been loaded, and in another there had been runners on first and second. Most double plays come on well hit balls, but the one that had stymied Puerto Rico’s effort in the fifth was particularly ironic; it came on a hard line drive to second that didn’t give the runner a chance to return to the bag.

Both teams remained scoreless until the tenth, which was under the new rule that mandates that extra innings begin with a runner on second. Puerto Rico’s runner was Rey Fuentes, Carlos Beltrán’s cousin and also a journeyman who has seen big league action with San Diego, Kansas City, and Arizona.

He stayed put on second when David Vidal flew out to right, but he stole third while Jack López was at bat and scored on López’s single to center. Henry Ramos bunted for a hit, and everything seemed seemed in place to seal a victory for the islanders. But Iván de Jesús ground into a 6-4 force out of López, and now it was Venezuela’s to use the extra inning-extra runner rule.

Their runner was René Reyes. He stopped at third after Adonis García lined a single to right. Gorkys Hernández received an intentional walk to load the bases and set up a force out at home.

Juan Apodaca hit a sharp grounder to Emmanuel Rivera at third, who threw home for the force on Reyes. Santurce’s strategy was working! But then catcher Jonathan Morales overthrew first, allowing García and Hernández to score. Venezuela had snatched its irons from the fire. Puerto Rico’s manager, José Valentín left the dugout to ask for a review, but the umpiring crew walked off the field. Replays showed that Apodaca had run out of the base line to first.

The loss was disappointing for Puerto Rico, not just because of the emotional cost of this roller coaster ride of a game or the team’s won-lost record falling to 1-2 but because their first baseman José Sermo was injured while striking out in his last, ninth inning, at bat and isńt expected to recover before the end of the series. After the game, Valentín commented, “We’ll just have to accept defeat like the men we are.”

Venezuela leads the Series pack at 3-0. The Dominican Republic and Mexico are tied for second at 2-1, followed by Puerto Rico and Panama, whose 1-2 mark ties them for fourth. Colombia trails the pack at 0-3.

February 3

By Lewis Rubman

Dominican Republic (2-1) 4 5 0

Colombia (0-3) 0 5 0

HATO REY, PUERTO RICO–This afternoon’s hard fought contest between the Toros del Este, champions of the Dominican League, and the Montería Vaqueros (Buckaroos) their counterparts from Colombia, was a lot closer and exciting than the final score would indicate. The totals for hits and errors gives a better idea of the tightness of the encounter than the runs total does.

Two right handers, the Dominican’s Pablo Espino and Colombia’s Randy Consuegra, held their opponent scoreless for almost six innings. Espino completed that stretch; Consuegra was replaced by a situational lefty with after five and a half frames, which may have been the start of his team’s undoing.

The slow building tensions of a pitchers’ duel exploded in the top of the seventh. Ronald Ramírez, the southpaw who closed closed down the Dominican threat in the sixth, didn’t take the mound to start the seventh. Of course, “threat” is a relative concept.

In this case, it consisted of a man on first with two outs. His right handed successor, Pedro Escobar, immediately faced a real threat and was unable to deal with it. He walked the first batter he faced, Junior Lake. Another baseball lifer, 29 year old Peter O’Brien who achieved a lifetime batting average of .209 in four years of cups of espresso, then whacked a might home run over the right field wall, and the two evenly matched teams were two runs apart. Not an insurmountable different but not an insignificant one, either.

The Toros’ impetus carried over from their pitching and hitting to their fielding. The first play of the Buckaroos’ half of the seventh was memorable. Andy Vásquez, hoping to ignite his teammates’ bats, executed a beautiful drag bunt, equidistant from the mound, the first baseman, and the second baseman. Gustavo Núñez, playing second, charged the ball, picked it up with his gloved, and shot it straight from the glove, untouched by human hands, in a sharp, straight line to O’Brien at first. O’Brien made an acrobatic grab of the ball and still managed to maintain contact with the bag long enough to get the out.

In any case, in the top of the eighth, with Carlos Díaz on the mound for the Vaqueros, Oakland prospect Jorge Mateo lined a single to center field. He advanced to third on Rubén Sosa’s line drive single, also to center. Díaz was yanked, and Anthony Vizcaya took over. He uncorked a wild pitch that allowed Mateo to score and Sosa to reach third base, known in Spanish as the waiting room before scoring on Lake’s ground out to short.

The excitement didn’t end there. Colombia fought back valiantly in the bottom of the eighth. Díaz allowed a single to Jordan Díaz and a base on balls to Brallan Pérez open the episode. Men on first and second, no outs – the perfect time for a sacrifice.

Francisco Acuña bunted, but not as well Vásquez had in the previous frame. Acuña’s attempt resulted in a pop up to Jumbo Díaz, now pitching in relief for the Toros. He threw to O’Brien at first for the out on Pérez, who had taken off for second. O’Brien then hurled a cross-diamond bullet to third baseman Diego Goris that nabbed Jordan Díaz to complete the triple play.

Espino got the win. There was no save, but Bay Area fans might find it interesting that Fernando Abad pitched a perfect top of the ninth to end the game. Pedro Escobar was charged with the loss.

Puerto Rico will take on Venezuela in about an hour and a half.