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M e x i c o
Monday,
October 25, 2021
OBREGON,
NAVOJOA TIED AT TOP OF LMP STANDINGS
At the halfway point of the Mexican
Pacific League's first half schedule, two teams share the lead in the LMP
standings with identical 11-6 records. The Obregon Yaquis and Navojoa Mayos
find themselves in the driver's seat with three weeks remaining in the opening
stanza of the 2021-22 season.
Obregon did their part in breaking a
three-way deadlock at the top Sunday by clobbering Mexicali, 8-2, in the border
city. Jonathan Aranda broke a 1-1 tie with a solo homer off Aguilas starter
Javier Solano in the top of the second inning, but it was a Reynaldo Rodriguez
grand slam off Solano in the third that for all intent and purposes put the
game away for the Yaquis. Obregon starter Hector Velazquez got the win with six
solid innings, allowing one run on two hits with five strikeouts. Solano was
tagged with the loss after giving up eight runs on five hits and four walks
over four innings.
Navojoa did Sunday's heavy lifting by
topping Jalisco, 4-2, at home in Estadio Manuel “Ciclon” Echeverria after both
teams entered the game with 10-6 records. The contest was knotted up at two
runs apiece until Mayos third baseman Samar Leyva launched a solo homer over
the left-center field wall off Charros starter Alex Delgado in the bottom of
the fourth. Navojoa added an insurance run when Omar Renteria led off the
seventh with a doubled up the middle off reliever Fernando Cruz, moved to third
on an Omar Meza sacrifice bunt down the third base line and scored on Jorge
Flores' single to right. Navojoa starter Raul Carrillo allowed two runs in 5.2
innings and five relievers surrendered one hit the rest of the way as the Mayos
completed a three-game weekend sweep.
At the other end of the spectrum,
the Los Mochis Caneros have won just four of their first 16 games to bring up
the rear after a disastrous 2020-21 campaign in which they went an aggregate
19-39 over two halves, worst in the LMP under manager Victor Bojorquez.
Robinson Cancel is the Los Mochis helmsman this winter but thus far nothing
much has changed, although the Caneros did salvage a series in Monterrey Sunday
with a 2-1 win over the Sultanes behind a solo homer by Josuan Hernandez and
6.2 innings of one-run pitching by starter Carlos Viera.
Heading into Sunday's games,
Jalisco's Christian Villanueva was batting an even .400 to lead all LMP
batters. Tirso Ornelas of Navojoa is second at .390 while Hermosillo's Nick
Torres' .386 is good enough for third. Torres also tops the tables with five
homers, one more than the four roundtrippers of Danny Ortiz (Monterrey),
Missael Rivera (Jalisco) and Maikel Serrano (Navojoa). Serrano is first in RBIs
with 17, ahead of Ortiz' 14 and the 13 of Torrez. Culiacan has three of the top
five base stealers in the Mex Pac: Dairon Blanco leads the list with six
swipes, one more than the five of teammate Sebastian Elizalde and Mazatlan's
Ramon Rios and two more than Tomateros infielder Ramiro Pena and Venados
outfielder Randy Romero.
Among pitchers, Navojoa's Carlos De
Leon has been a major reason for the Mayos' strong burst out the gate by
winning his first three starts, making him the only LMP pitcher with a trio of
wins at this stage of the season. Thirteen other pitchers have two wins, with
two starters (Jalisco's Orlando Lara and Elian Leyva of Hermosillo) tied for
the lead with 0.00 ERAs to augment their respective 2-0 records. Obregon's Luis
Escobar has 24 strikeouts in 22.1 innings to lead the loop while Hermosillo
veteran Juan Pablo Oramas is second with 20 whiffs over 23 frames. Jake Sanchez
of Mexicali has four saves (plus a win) in seven outings for the most in that
category, with Jalisco's Roberto Osuna and Carlos Bustamante of Navojoa tied
for second with three salvados apiece. Sanchez has 14 strikeouts in
seven innings with a 1.29 ERA.
Off the LMP playing field, the
expected sale of the Jalisco Charros has been finalized. The team, which has
been marred by internecine front office squabbling for at least the past year,
was sold by prime combatants Salvador Quirarte and Armando Navarro (who brought
the team to Guadalajara from Guasave in 2014) to a group led by Jose Luis
Gonzalez, his son Inigo and brother Juan Carlos, who also own the Mexican
League Guadalajara Mariachis. Navarro was present at the press conference
announcing the sale and said, “I wish the new owners every success and I thank
all the fans.” The State of Jalisco is allowing the Charros to make fifty
percent of Estadio Panamericano's 16,500 seats available for home games.
MEX
PAC ROAD TRIP: Obregon, Sonora
We’ll continue our virtual journey
to all ten Mexican Pacific League franchise sites by driving south from
Hermosillo on Highway 15 for three-and-a-half hours (155 miles) through former
LMP city Guaymas to Ciudad Obregon, Sonora’s second largest city behind
Hermosillo with a metropolitan population of 375,000 and home of the seven-time
league champion Yaquis.
While the city itself is less than
100 years old, the area it sits in had long been settled by the Yaqui Indian nation,
after whom the baseball team was named. Originally known as Cajeme when it was
given municipal status in 1927, the city was renamed in 1937 after Revolution
hero General Alvaro Obregon, a Navojoa native who later became president of
Mexico and initiated modern agricultural techniques to the Yaqui Valley that
made the region one of the most prosperous in the country. In fact, the area is
called “Mexico’s Grain Provider” thanks to wheat growing standards partly
established by American Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr. Norman Bourlaug.
Present-day Obregon is the
agribusiness center of a region whose countryside is liberally dotted with
grain elevators, storage silos and cotton mills. While it is a working city and
not tourism-oriented, there are some points of interest for visitors to take
in. Laguna Nainari just west of town is a popular lagoon with restaurants,
picnic areas and boats for water-skiing, while the nearby San Jose Beach
features a spa. South of Laguna Nainari is the Parque Ostimuri, a tree-lined
park geared towards young people (and the young at heart) with an amusement
park, several refreshment stands and a zoo with animals ranging from deer and
boars to turtles and gila monsters.
The Museo del Yaquis celebrates the
history of the valley and is doing its part to keep the culture of the Yaqui
people alive. Moreover, the Mexican government designated the Yaquis as the
first recognized tribe in the country, allowing them to continue their
traditions overseen by a tribal government. There are four institutes of higher
education in Obregon while the local airport receives flight from 13 Mexican
and four U.S. cities.
Professional baseball in Obregon
debuted in 1947 as a member of the old Pacific Coast League. The Yaquis have
won seven MexPac pennants (including three in a row under manager Eddie Diaz
between 2010-11 and 2012-13) since 1965-66, winning Caribbean Series
championships in 2011 and 2013. Past Obregon players whose numbers have been
retired include Vinny Castilla, Roberto Vizcarra, Carlos Valencia and brothers
Vicente and Enrique Romo.
.
The Yaquis play their home games in
the state of the art Estadio Yaquis, a 16,500-seat facility on the outskirts of
town that opened in time for the 2016-17 season. Estadio Yaquis co-hosted games
for the WBSC U-23 Baseball World Cup last month. Considered one of Mexico's
finest ballparks, it's had a cool reception among local fans due to high ticket
prices and a less-centralized location than Estadio Tomas Oroz Gaytan, which
served the team for 36 years and (like Hermosillo's Estadio Hector Espino) has
been purchased by the federal government to serve as a baseball academy.
MAESTROS OF MEXICO: Nelson Barrera,
3B/1B/DH
One of the most beloved and admired
figures in Mexican baseball history, Nelson Barrera Romellon was a mainstay at
third base in the LMB for 26 seasons.
Nicknamed El Almirante (“The Admiral”) by fans, Barrera was born
October 17, 1957 in Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche and grew up to be a six
foot,180-pounder. Surprisingly, given his career power totals, Barrera was not
considered a home run hitter for the first few years of his Liga career. In fact, he hit just 48 roundtrippers over
his first seven campaigns between 1977 and 1983.
Barrera posted his first big season as a 26-year-old in 1984 with Mexico City, cracking 23 homers while hitting .354 and driving in 101 runs. That led to an invitation to spring training by the Chicago White Sox in 1985. After batting just .176 with two homers for Class AAA Buffalo, Barrera was sent back to the Diablos Rojos and never played outside Mexico again.
He went on a three-year tear between 1986 and 1988 for Mexico City, belting 110 homers and driving in 383 runs while posting batting averages of .350, .349 and .372. Although he never approached those kinds of numbers the rest of his career, The Admiral remained one of the most respected and feared batters in Mexico through the rest of the 20th century.
Barrera
retired with 455 career homers, two more than all-time great Hector Espino’s
453. His 1,928 career RBIs is also the
Liga’s all-time best, as are his 972 extra-base hits and six 100-plus RBI
seasons. He finished with 2,938 career hits (second behind Jesus Sommers) and a
lifetime batting average of .298. Along
with Sommers, he had 19 seasons of 100 or more hits. Barrera hit three homers
in a seven-inning game, and once had a streak of seven bombs over a five-game
stretch.
He was a fairly marginal batter in
the winter Pacific League, hitting .254 over 15 seasons with Culiacan and
Mexicali although he was the LMP’s MVP for the Tomateros in 1984-85 with 15
homers and 68 RBIs. Barrera made his
hits count in the winter, however, and stands sixth in career homers with 131
and 9th in RBIs with 479. His
eight career grand slam homers are a MexPac record. He played in five Caribbean Series between
1983 and 1988, winning a title with Mexicali in 1986 in Venezuela.
Barrera was respected as a manager, too, leading the Oaxaca Guerreros to the LMB crown in 1998 while turning in 15/110/.321 numbers as a player. He was managing the Campeche Piratas in his home state when he died tragically in 2002 after he was electrocuted by a live hanging wire while doing repairs on the roof of his home following a severe windstorm. The ballpark in Campeche was renamed in his honor.
