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B a s e b a l l
M e x i c o
Monday,
July 5, 2021
OSUNA
DOMINANT AS DIABLOS CLOSER, EYES RETURN TO MLB
Former All-Star relief pitcher
Roberto Osuna has made the most of what he hopes will be a short stay in the
Mexican League this year. Heading into the weekend, the 26-year-old righthander
had yet to allow an earned run on seven hits over twelve appearances for the
Mexico City Diablos Rojos, winning one game and saving six more while striking
out twelve batters and walking none in 12.1 innings of work.
While much of that was undone by one
awful outing on Saturday night against Guadalajara, in which Osuna gave up
three runs in one-third of one inning (including homers by Jesse Castillo and
Anthony Garcia) and took the loss in a 6-3 defeat at the hands of the visiting
Mariachis, the Sinaloa native appears to be back from an elbow injury that
derailed his 2020 season with the Houston Astros and may be back in Major
League Baseball sooner rather than later.
Osuna has been a big part of the
Diablos' strong start to the 2021 season as Mexico City leads the LMB South
with a 22-15 record, although they've dropped five games in a row after being
swept at home by the Mariachis over the weekend. Red Devils manager Miguel
Ojeda, himself a former major league catcher, thinks it's just a matter of time
before an MLB organization brings Osuna back across the border. “He's shown
that he's healthy and ready to return,” says Ojeda. “It's just a matter of days
and I think he's going to be back in the major leagues. We talk a lot and he
tells me he has two real offers.”
The 6'2” 217-pounder spent six
seasons in the big leagues with Toronto and Houston, posting a 14-18 record
with 155 saves to go along with a 2.74 ERA in 314 appearances. Osuna was chosen
for the 2017 All-Star Game while with the Blue Jays and led the American League
with 39 saves as the Astros closer, appearing with Houston in that season's
World Series. While an alleged domestic violence incident that never went to
trial resulted in a 75-game suspension to close the door on his time in Toronto
before being traded in 2018, Osuna headed into the 2020 campaign as a
25-year-old star with one year left on his contract for $10 million and a
strong future seemingly ahead of him.
Instead, Osuna came down with
pitching elbow miseries, appearing in only four games before being shut down
for the campaign in August. The Astros recommended Tommy John surgery, but
Osuna refused and the team placed him on waivers after the season, making him a
free agent. When a showcase in the Dominican Republic drew no offers, he signed
a one-year contract with the Diablos, the team he made his pro debut with in
2011 at age 16.
Now that he's showing signs that his
arm is recovered, Osuna says he's going to concentrate on getting the job done
in Mexico City until an acceptable offer from an MLB organization is made. “I
do have a couple of offers out there which I'm still analyzing to see which is
the best one,” he said at a press conference last week. “My priority is to stay
healthy because I know what I'm capable of when I'm healthy. I've been enjoying
every day being with the Diablos and my goal is to help as much as I can.” He
added that he'd enjoy pitching for Mexico and Benji Gil at the Summer Olympics
in Tokyo if that opportunity arrives.
The Diablos' recent tailspin has
allowed Yucatan to pull to within a half-game at 21-15. The Leones have gone
7-4 since Geronimo Gil was fired last month and have yet to announce the
ex-MLBer's replacement. It's assumed that bench coach Chico Rodriguez, a Salon
de la Fama member hired the day Gil was canned, is calling the shots, but who
knows? Puebla is one game behind the
Diablos in third place with a 21-16 mark while Veracruz is right behind in
fourth at 21-17. With six teams per division reaching the playoffs this year,
there's a spirited three-way battle for the final two LMB South berths between
Tabasco (18-20) and both Leon and Quintana Roo (18-21 each).
The LMB North is a two-team race
right now, with 26-9 Guadalajara one game ahead of 27-12 Tijuana. Saltillo has
won eight of their last ten games to pull into a tie with defending champion
Monclova, four games behind the Mariachis with identical 24-15 records. Dos
Laredos (17-21) is in fifth place while Laguna (16-20) is sixth. Monterrey
(15-21), where expectations are high, continues to struggle. The Sultanes have
already brought back third baseman Augie Murillo from de facto farm team
Leon (the two clubs are co-owned by Grupo Multimedios) and it would no be out
of the question that Monterrey could engineer another player swap with the
Bravos to bolster their roster.
Bartolo Colon's comeback continued
as the former Cy Young winner by picking up his fifth win for Monclova last
week, tying him with Guadalajara's Masaru Nakamura for the LMB lead. The 48-year-old
Colon has tossed a league-leading 50.1 innings over eight starts, striking out
34 while walking just nine batters. Former Mariners minor league reliever
Rafael Pineda has been converted to a starter with Union Laguna and the former
Texas A&M hurler has a 2.31 ERA after seven starts to lead all qualifying
pitchers. Aguascalientes' Erick Leal (3-1, 4.22) ranks first with 43 strikeouts
in 32 innings, or 12.1 per nine innings for the former Cubs farmhand. Tijuana
closer Fernando Rodney, who saved 318 games in 17 MLB seasons (ranking 18th
all-time), now leads the Mexican League in salvados with 11. The
44-year-old Rodney has struck out 20 over 18 innings while lowering his ERA to
1.00 for the Toros.
Four players are still batting above
.400, led by Saltillo's Henry Urrutia at .439. Xavier Batista, who came to Leon
in the Murillo trade is tops with 13 homers (all hit during his 25 games for
the Bravos after hitting none over 13 games with the Sultanes). Batista belted
62 homers over 261 games for Hiroshima in NPB between 2017 and 2019. Tijuana's
Leandro Castro is ten RBIs ahead of his nearest competitor with 48 RBIs and
Toros teammate Isaac Rodriguez (a .407 batter) leads with 15 stolen bases.
WRITER
ACCUSES DE LA VEGA, CONADE OF CONFLICT OF INTEREST
Mexican League president Horacio de
la Vega is finding himself embroiled in another controversy. According to
Alejandra Crail of the EME/EQUIS digital news site, a fledgling company
in which the former two-time Olympic pentathlete is majority owner was awarded
a no-bid contract worth almost 11 million pesos by the federal Commission of
Physical Culture and Sports. CONADE is headed by another ex-Olympian, Ana
Guevara, who represented Mexico in the 2000 Sydney Summer Games as a track
athlete along with de la Vega.
De la Vega's company, Hype Fund, was
formed in May 2019, six months after being replaced as director of Mexico
City's Sports Institute (INDEPORTE), a job he'd held for six years, to succeed
Javier Salinas as president of the LMB. Hype Fund received a contract of 10.994
million pesos to refurbish a pavilion at the National Center for Development of
Talent and High Performance (CNAR) in which basketball, volleyball and team
handball are played, including replacing vinyl flooring on a multisport playing
surface and installing a portable wooden basketball court.
The contract, which was the highest
awarded by CONADE in 2020, was signed at approximately the same time it was
announced that the Mexican League had awarded Veracruz an expansion team for this
year at a ceremony in the National Palace overseen by Mexican president Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador and attended by de la Vega along with representatives of
both new franchises in Veracruz and Guadalajara. A related story in Proceso
says the Veracruz team fulfilled a campaign promise by AMLO to facilitate the
return of the Mexican League to the port city.
In her EME/EQUIS story, Crail
says the contract “represents a conflict of interest given the closeness that
exists between Horacio de la Vega and Ana Guevara, director of CONADE, as well
as with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, with whom de la Vega has close
relationships.” Guevara was appointed by AMLO shortly after he took office in
late 2018 to serve as CONADE's executive director, a position de la Vega had
been considered for prior to his selection and LMB president.
The CONADE contract represents the
only such deal between Hype Fund and a federal or local governmental entity,
although the company has also inked a pact to represent the MONDO sports flooring of Italy. MONDO
presumably will play a role in replacing the playing surfaces at the CNAR
facility in Mexico City, which was opened in 2006 by former Mexican president
and houses over 500 young athletes in several sports.
In an interview with EME/EQUIS,
de la Vega denied that his role as a supporter has opened doors for him to
obtain contracts with the AMLO administration. “It has nothing to do with it, I
openly tell you. The government people have no idea that I am the legal
representative. There is a work team that does it...I do not influence it at
all and there is no relationship. We are all trying to work on various things,
to make our way.
“I was fortunate that they hired me
in some other places: the Pan American Games in Lima as general advisor, in
Chile, and then I brought the representation of MONDO in Mexico, which is a
most important sports equipment company, characterized by making the running
tracks from Montreal 76. You scrub and work your best. There is no relationship
between these situations.”
De la Vega is ALSO one of three
people facing criminal complaint charges from the mayor in Mexico City borough
Iztalcalco of “fraudulant administration” stemming from his leadership at the
National Sports Institute between 2013 and 2018, including allegations that he
awarded contracts far exceeding the value of work done on projects within the
Sports City complex.
Among those were construction of an
artificial lake for 15 million pesos to be used for swimming, diving and water
skiing. The lake, which displaced five soccer fields and four basketball
courts, is currently inoperative. In all, de La Vega and former Mexico City
mayor Miguel Angel Mancera are rumored to have privatized 70 percent of the
Sports City complex with no appreciable benefit to the government that owns it.
RAMOS
SUFFERS SPINAL INJURY, RELEASED BY KBO TEAM
After last year's standout Korea
Baseball Organization debut with the LG Twins, Roberto Ramos has seen his 2021
KBO season cut short after suffering an injury to fifth spinal nerve in his
lower back. The Hermosillo native had been struggling in his second season with
the Twins, but was still reportedly under consideration as a first baseman for
the Mexican Olympic Team in Tokyo later this summer.
Ramos was hurt on Tuesday, June 8 in
Seoul during the eighth inning of a game against the NC Dinos. While fielding a
grounder hit in the hole between first and second by the Dinos' Lee Myung-ki,
according to South Korea's News1, Ramos wrenched his back when he attempted
to throw the ball to first base to beat Lee to the bag.
Ramos was pulled from the game and
did not appear again in the Twins lineup up to his June 29 release by the
Twins, who two days earlier signed former Marlins first sacker Justin Bour, who
hit .213 with six homers in 33 games for AAA Sacramento this year before the
parent San Francisco Giants released him from his contract so he could play in
Korea.
It was a frustrating end to a
frustrating season for Ramos, who was batting .243 with eight roundtrippers and
25 RBIs in 51 games for the Twins this year. The former Rockies minor leaguer
had gone 2-for-4 in the game against the Dinos before getting hurt and went
2-for-3 with a homer and three RBIs two nights before against the KIA Tigers to
raise his average 13 points over his last two games.
In 2020, Ramos burst on the KBO
scene by swatting 38 longballs to shatter the Twins' previous single-season
record of 30 homers by Lee Byung-kyu in 1999 while topping Karim Garcia's old
standard for Mexicans playing in Korea of 30 homers. Garcia set the mark in
2008 with the Lotte Giants.
Ramos' performance translated to a
large raise from the Twins in 2021 after he'd explored playing in Japan, where
salaries are higher. After being paid a reported $500,000 last year, Ramos came
to terms with the Twins for a $600,000 salary plus a $200,000 signing bonus and
performance incentives that would have paid up to another $200,000.
Instead, the former College of the Canyons star (who hit 62 homers over his last two seasons in the Rockies system before heading overseas) is now a free agent. There's a chance Ramos will play an eighth Mexican Pacific League season for hometown Hermosillo Naranjeros this winter after some rehab time but for now, the 6'3” 220-pound free agent is weighing his options.
