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M e x i c o
Monday,
May 31, 2021
VERACRUZ'
UNSWORTH TOSSES NO-HITTER AGAINST DIABLOS
Veracruz pitcher Dylan Unsworth
arrived this year in the Mexican League and has already ensured that his name
is registered in the record books by launching a no-hitter last Friday in an
8-0 Aguilas home victory over the Mexico City Diablos Rojos in Estadio Beto
Avila.
In just his second game in the LMB,
the 4,229 fans in attendance saw a golden outing from the South African
pitcher, who pitched the full route and took a perfect game into the seventh
inning. After walking Juan Carlos Gamboa on five pitches with one out, "El
Tiburon" did not allow another baserunner and handcuffed the Diablos to
achieve the Liga's first no-no of the 2021 season and number 96 in the history
of the summer circuit.
The former Mariners farmhand, who
was about to not come to Mexico due to the complicated logistics to travel from
South Africa to Veracruz due to the pandemic, became the seventh pitcher of the
Eagle to toss a no-hit, no run game, joining a list inaugurated by Martín
Dihigo in 1937.
The Aguilas opened the scoring in
the second inning off Mexico City starter Sasagi Sánchez when, with one out on
the board , Héctor Gómez belted a homer right field to put Veracruz in front,
1-0. The Eagles again damaged the Diablos pitching in the fifth inning when
Alexi Amarista stoked his fifth double of the season to send Kevin Flores and
Alonso Gaitan home. Yasiel Puig then singled to left and brought in Amarista
for Veracruz' fourth run.
In the fifth entrada, the
Aguilas put together a three-run frame as Alexei Amarista slashed a two-run
double and later scored on a Puig single. One frame later, Alex Ortiz hit his
first double of the season and drove in Héctor Mora. Then, with Puig at bat,
Diablos reliever Armando Araiza uncorked a wild pitch to allow Amarista run
from third to home plate, scoring the seventh run.
In the top of the seventh, Unsworth
lost his perfect game bid when Juan Carlos Gamboa reached base on a five-pitch
walk. However the Aguilas defense
supported their pitcher and avoided any damage the rest of the way. The Veracruz nine scored once more in the
eighth inning, courtesy of Ortíz' single to right, which plated Kevin Flores with
the final tally of the night. Ortiz finished with three hits and three RBIs in
the contest.
It was a masterful performance by
Unsworth, a 28-year-old righty who pitched in the Dodgers chain as well as in
Venezuela and Australia following his release by Seattle in 2017. He only
required 75 pitches over nine innings (58 of them strikes) for a complete game
last ended 20 minutes shy of three hours even with Veracruz' eight-run outburst
in which 15 Aguila batsmen reached base via hit or walk. Sasagi took the loss
for the Diablos after allowing four runs on five hits over 4.2 innings of work.
VERACRUZ
AGUILAS NO-HITTER HISTORY
Martín Dihigo
(1937) vs Nogales
Leroy Gaines
(1940) vs Chihuahua
Anastacio
Velázquez (1974) vs Chihuahua
Héctor
Madrigal (1983) vs Ciudad Juárez
Leobardo Meza
(1993) vs Laredo
Julio
Hernández (1995) vs Diablos Rojos
Dylan
Unsworth (2021) vs Diablos Rojos
FINAL
OLYMPIC BASEBALL QUALIFIER MOVED TO PUEBLA
The World Baseball and Softball
Confederation (WBSC) revealed last Thursday that the Final Baseball Qualifier
for the Olympic Games, to be played in Tokyo, will take place from June 22 to
26 at Estadio Hermanos Serdan, home of the Mexican League's Puebla Pericos.
The qualifying tournament was
originally going to take place in Taiwan at Taichung Intercontinental Baseball
Stadium, but safety concerns were raised over an increased outbreak of the
Wuhan virus across the island nation that led to the cancellation of a week's
worth of games in the Chinese Professional Baseball League. The WBSC determined
that the final qualifier would instead take place in Mexico (particularly in
Puebla) due to its strategic location.
"The Olympic baseball
qualifiers will have a safe and successful conclusion in Puebla, at the home of
the Pericos of the Mexican Baseball League," WBSC President Riccardo
Fraccari said in a press release. He added “The 'Road to Tokyo 2020' of
baseball is already established, and for this I would like to extend the
deepest gratitude of the entire WBSC family, to the president of Mexico, Andrés
Manuel López Obrador; director of the National Commission for Physical Culture
and Sports (CONADE) Ana Guevara; to the authorities of the State of Puebla and
the owner of the Puebla Pericos club."
For his part, Pericos owner and team
president José Miguel Bejos said, “We are very proud to host this important
tournament and to welcome these teams. The work carried out in recent years
allows us to showcase Puebla and the Pericos, and to stand out as one of the
best organizations in the world.”
The five teams that will compete in
the last Olympic baseball qualifier include Australia, The Netherlands and
Taiwan, while the other two teams will come out of the Baseball Qualifier of
the Americas, a playoff that begins May 31 in Florida. The winner of that
qualifier will punch their ticket to Tokyo while the second and third place
teams will join the final playoff in Puebla.
So far, four teams have qualified
for the Olympics: Japan, Israel, Korea and Mexico.
The
tournament organizers will later announce the details about the allowed
capacity in conjunction with what the corresponding authorities determine.
CANTU
BECOMES FIRST TO HIT 100 HRS IN BOTH MLB AND LMB
Mexico City Diablos Rojos veteran
slugger Jorge “El Bronco” Cantu opened a special section for players who have
also played in the Mexican League by becoming the first Mexicano to hit 100
home runs during the regular seasons of both MLB and the LMB.
The historic blast came in the ninth
inning of last Wednesday's game in Oaxaca against the Guerreros. With two
teammates on board, Cantu smashed the ball over Estadio Eduardo Vasconcelos'
right field wall for the final score to the game that his Mexico City Diablos
Rojos won, 5-1.
After playing eight seasons in the
Major Leagues with five different teams with which he hit 104 home runs, Cantú
returned to Mexico and fulfilled a promise he'd given to Cuauhtémoc “Chito”
Rodríguez, former president of the Mexico City Tigres, that he'd play with the
Bengals when his MLB days were over. Following two-and-a-half seasons with Quintana
Roo between 2013 and 2016 (plus a one-year a stint in South Korea), Cantú was
sent to Toros de Tijuana after having hit 63 home runs with the Tigres.
With the Toros, he hit 24 more
longballs between 2017 and 2018 before he reached an agreement with the
Diablos, a club with which in 2019 he socked 12 more home runs to end the
season with his LMB home run total at 99. The season in which he hit the most
home runs was 2013 when he hit 31, only six less than that season's home run
champion, Carmen's Rubén Mateo (who belted 37).
The 39-year-old Cantu was born in
the border city of Brownsville, Texas but grew up across the border in Reynosa.
He was spotted by a Tampa Bay scout as a 16-year-old high schooler while
playing in Mexico City during a Junior Olympics tournament in 1998 and offered
a contract with the Rays. After signing, he made his pro debut with Class A
Hudson Valley one year later and eventually reached the Majors with Tampa Bay
in 2004, primarily as a second baseman.
Cantu went on to some good seasons
with the Rays (socking 28 homers and driving in 117 runs in 2005) and the
Marlins (45 roundtrippers and 195 RBIs between 2008-09) before wrapping up his
MLB career with San Diego in 2011. His 2014 season with the KBO's Doosan Bears
saw him hit .309 with 18 homers in 111 games, but he came back to Mexico for
good in 2015.
Last Wednesday's roundtripper against the Guerreros will be recorded as the first of the season for Jorge Cantu but with another two months left in the Liga's abbreviated 66-game schedule for 2021, it likely won't be his last.
