Tag: Colombia

That’s Amaury News and Commentary: 67th Caribbean Series Dominican Dominance

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Players of Puerto Rico celebrate after a Caribbean Series baseball consolation game against Venezuela at Nido de los Aguilas stadium in Mexicali, Mexico, Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025.Fernando Llano – AP

By Amaury Pi Gonzalez

The title game took place in Hermosillo, México. The Dominican Republic won its 23rd Caribbean Series championship as it beat the previously unbeaten Charros de Jalisco, representing the host country, México.

The Leones del Escogido, representing the Dominican Republic, managed by Albert Pujols, beat the Mexican squad by the final score of 1-0. Esmil Rogers and the Leones pitching staff blanked the Mexicans by throwing a one-hitter for the 1-0 victory.

With the victory, the Dominican Republic continues its dominance of this tournament, as they now have won 23 titles. This series has been won by 29 teams from seven different countries.

History and Championships of the Caribbean Series by countries Dominican Republic 23, Puerto Rico 16, México 9, Cuba 8, Venezuela 8, Panamá 2, and COLOMBIA 1

Amaury Pi-Gonzalez – Cuban-born Pi-González is one of the pioneers of Spanish-language baseball play-by-play in America. Began as Oakland A’s Spanish-language voice in 1977, a role he continues to this day (interrupted by stops with the Giants, Mariners and Angels). Voice of the Golden State Warriors from 1992 through 1998. 2010 inducted in the Bay Area Radio Hall of fame

World Baseball Classic: Columbia edges Mexico 5-4 in Phoenix

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Colombia just gets by Mexico in the World Baseball Classic on Sat Mar 11, 2023 at Chase Field in Phoenix (mlb.com image)

Colombia vs. Mexico

Colombia 5 7 1

Mexico 4. 9. 1

Sat Mar 11, 2023

By Lewis Rubman

PHOENIX–Oscar Mercado fouled off Julio Urías’s first pitch at 12:38 Mountain Time this warm and sunny Saturday afternoon under the closed roof of Chase field signaled the opening of the long awaited start of the 2023 World Baseball Classic in the western United States.

The Dodgers stellar southpaw would go five innings for Team Mexico against Colombia, the other Latin American entry in Group C ,before giving way to Luis Cessa.. Urías hurled 62 pitches, 19 of which were balls, allowing three runs, all of them earned, on there hits, one of them a homer, and striking out six,in what proved to be a stunning extra inning win for Colombia, who defeated the favored Mexicans in 10 innings, 5-4.

Colombia used seven pitchers, with righty Guillermo Zúñiga, who hurled the last two frames getting the win. Mexico sent five men to the mound, and the loss went to Jesús Cruz, who lost because of circumstances beyond his control in the tenth, the only frame he pitched.

Urias didn’t allowing a base runner over his first four frames. And thens roof fell in. Back to back doubles by Jorge Alfaro and Elias Diaz brought in the former and a 342 round tripper over the left field fence off the bat of Elias Diaz gave the Colombians their second and third scores. The bottom third of lineup then went down in order.

Colombia’s skipper Edgar Remteria and pitching coach Walter Miranda entrusted his teams fortunes to Nabil Crismatt, a righty who’s pitched for the Cardinals and Padres, going 5-2, 294 for San Diego last year. He pitched well out of the gate.

Although he couldn’t match Urias’s perfect performance over the four opening frames, Colombia’s starter shut out he Mexican squad over 3-1/3 innings, allowing only one hit, a double to right center by Randy Arozamena in the first that showed that, in spite of the success the the visitors would owe to a that play,

The Curse of the Led Off Double applies to the WBC. But then, Mexico broke through in the home fourth on a single lead off single to center by Joey Menenses, who advanced to second on Rudy Téllez’s bouncer to the mound and scored on Isaac Parades’s double to center.

Crismatt gave way to Jhon Romero as soon as Mexico came up in the bottom of the fifth. Crisatt had thrown 57 piches, 34 strikes, over his four inning stint, during which he allowed one run, which was earned, on three hits and struck out an equal number of Mexico’s batters, while walking one.

Romero lasted a mere 2/3 of an inning, blowing his inherited 3-1 lead on a 389 two run blast into the left field seats by first baseman Reynaldo Ramirez. The reliever threw 18 pitches, 10 for strikes, yielding one walk on two hits. Both of the runs he allowed were earned. Adrían Almeida replaced him to get the third out and returned to the mound for the sixth. He escaped damage in that frame thanks to an inning ending 6-4-3 twin killing.

Both teams pushed a man across the plate in the seventh. Colombia did it on a single by Reynaldo Rodgríguez plated Jorge Alfaro, who had doubled. They would have scored more if it hadn’t been for a beautiful around the horn double play started by Isaac Paredes’ grab of a hard grounder down the line by Jordán Díaz of the Oakland Athletics.

Mexico re-tied that score on Alex Verdugo’s single to center that drove in Aleck Thomas, who also had reached on a single to center and gone to second on another safety by Austin Barnes. The run was charged to Reiver San Martin, although it was Pedro García suffered Verdugo’s punishing blow.

Colombia scratched out a run in the top of the tenth off Jesús Cruz. Zombie runner Alfaro advanced to third on Díaz’s fly to right .Mexico conceded a walk to Rodríguez.

Jarren Durán pinch ran for emplaced runner Verdugo. Meneses struck out swinging. Téllez flew out to left, and Paredes was called out on strikes, the last one of which was questionable.

Great Britain will play the United States at 7:00. If the visitors pull off a win, THAT would be an upset!

World Baseball Classic: Packing for Phoenix

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World Baseball Classic logo (mlb.com image)

Packing for Phoenix

March 9, 2023

By Lewis Rubman

For the first time since its inception in 2006, the World Baseball Classic will not stage its semi-final and final games in California. San Diego hosted the first championship round, followed by Los Angeles in 2009, San Francisco in 2013, and then it was back to Dodger Stadium in 2017.

This year the closest Bay Area fans will get to the action will be Phoenix, one of the four venues for the first round. Teams representing the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Canada, and Great Britain will duke it out in Chase Field. This quintet has been designated as Group C. The teams with the two best won-lost records in this round will advance to the quarter finals, AKA round 2, where they’ll face the two top finishers of Groups A,B, and D.

Now, let’s take a look at those groups.

Group A, consisting of the Netherlands, Cuba, Italy, Panama and what the organizers refer to as Chinese Taipei opened the action when the Netherlands beat Cuba 4-0 in Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium on what was March 7 here, but the afternoon of March 8 in Taiwan.

In what was the nightcap in Asia, visiting Panama pummelled the host team, 12-5, but outhit them by only one run, 14-13. No other scores were in for either of the Asian venues when I took a break for packing my bags for Phoenix to write this. Group A’s next round, AKA the quarter finals, will be played in Taichung, with the sole surviving squad moving on to Miami for the championship round, i.e., the semi-final and final series.

Japan, Korea, Australia, China, and the Czech Republic make up Group B. Their first game is scheduled to start in the Tokyo Dome at 4:00 pm here on a west coast Wednesday afternoon, about two hours from now, and will feature Australia and Korea. The advancing teams will remain in Tokyo for the quarter-finals and then go to Miami for the semi-final and final rounds.

Group D consists of Puerto Rico, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, Israel, and Nicaragua. They’ll play their games in Miami, starting with the Puerto Rico-Nicaragua match up at 9:00, Pacific time, on March 11. The team that wins this Group D first round at loanDepot Park will continue to play there as long as they remain in the running.

All of the above invites a few questions. Among them are how does a team qualify, what is the basis on which a qualifying team is assigned to one group rather than another, how are teams ranked with their pools?

There are three criteria for qualification. They are

  • The host country automatically qualifies. As with sausages, it’s best not to inquire about what goes into making the decision of which country that will be. • Any team that reached the 2017 semi-finals makes it into the first round in 2023 and will be the top seed in its group. • This point is delicate. MLB, the WBC’s parent organization, describes it this way: “… the remaining teams will be assigned based on December 31, 2021, WBSC [World Baseball Softball Confederation] rankings in order to guaranteed [sic] competitive balance. Commercial, geographic and geopolitical considerations may also be applied to this process.”

Let that last sentence sink in. When you’ve done, you can clear your mind by glancing at MLB.com’s ranking of the top ten teams. They are

1) The Dominican Republic 2) The USA 3) Japan 4) Puerto Rico 5) Mexico 6) Venezuela 7) Cuba 8) Canada 9) Italy 10) Korea.

I chose this source because I couldn’t find the final 2021 WSBC ratings and, in any case, 2022 was not a good year for lower level baseball and softball. I don’t know how accurate this MLB.com table is, but I suspect that it’s relevant that, of the four previous WBC titles, Japan has won two and the Dominican Republic and the United States have won the two remaining crowns. Cuba, the Netherlands, and Korea also have had notable success in the tournament.

In my next article, I’ll discuss, among other things, some thorny “geographic and geopolitical considerations” that could affect the inclusion and group placement of a country as well as individual players’ eligibility to play for any given team. After that, I plan to send two more dispatches before I begin reporting on the games of the Phoenix round on March 11. They will deal with other tournament rules and with the representation of players from bay area teams in the WBA.

Panama edges out Colombia 1-0

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By Lewis Rubman

Colombia (0-2) 0 2 2
Panama (1-1) 1 5 2

HATO REY, PUERTO RICO–This morning’s contest between Colombia’s Vaqueros (Cowboys) of Montería and Panama’s Chiquirí Astronautas was, as the score indicates, a close one, a pitchers´duel that wasn’t decided until the last out. It came, appropriately enough, on a strike that was in between a checked swing and a swing and miss. (The home plate ruled it was the later). The tying run was in scoring position.

Panama scored the first, only, and winning run in the bottom of the fourth. After Jhonny Santos flew out to Robinson Cabrera at the foot of the left field fence-the hardest hit ball of the game-a two base error by Mauricio Ramos, the Cowboys´third baseman, set up Isaías Velásquez´s run scoring single to center.

Colombia came close to tying the Panamanians in the top of the eighth in an at bat that showed that this game was not just a pitchers’ duel but a managers’ duel as well. With two outs and a man on second, Vaqueros skipper Ozney Guillén called on left handed batting José Brizuela to hit for the right handed Brallan Pérez.

What made this interesting is that the pitcher was a lefty, Davis Romero. The Astronautas´ manager. Julio Alberto Mosquera, and his pitching coach, Gerardo Casadiego, countered this move by calling on right handed reliever Diego Moreno.

With both sides having gone against the conventional wisdom concerning handedness, the Panamanian brain trust turned out to have made the wiser decision. Brizuela took a called third strike on a three and two pitch.

It was pinch hitter Isranel Wilson who wasn’t able to check his swing in time to prolong the game.

The pitching statistics are worth noting.

Colombia
PItcher IP H R ER BB K PC
Echemendia 4-2/3 3 1 0 1 1 55
Herrera 2-1/3 2 0 0 0 3 25
Almarante 0 0 0 0 1 0 7 (one HBP)
Acevedo 1 0 0 0 1 0 11

Panama
Romero 7-2/3 1 0 0 2 2 80
Moreno 1-1/3 1 9 9 2 4 22

As you would expect, Pedro Echemendia was the losing pitcher, and the win and the save went to Davis Romero and Diego Moreno, respectivey.

Panama, at 1-1, is now a half a game behind yesterday’s winners, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela, and it leads Mexlco by the same margin. Colombia is now two games behind the pace setters.

Puerto Rico, playing as the visitors, takes on Mexico in an hour or so, and the Dominicans will play Venezuela at 8:30.