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Bruce
Baskin /
Jackie
Robinson Moments
B a s e b a l l
M e x i c o
July
7, 2 0 1 7
TOROS SWEEP SULTANES IN
MONTERREY, TAKE LMB NORTH LEAD
The Tijuana Toros knew
they had an opportunity as difficult
as it was enormous when they traveled to Monterrey for a three-game
midweek
series against the Sultanes. Manager
Pedro Mere's Toros had been looking up at Monterrey in the Mexican
League's
North Division standings all season, but Tijuana had whittled the
Sultanes'
lead down to two-and-a-half games by the time the set opened Tuesday. The series gave the Bulls a chance to at
least narrow the gap a bit, but they were facing a Monterrey team that
leads
the LMB in batting with a .315 average and had won seven games in a
row,
including road trip sweeps in both Campeche and Tabasco (where they
endured
lighting problems at Parque Centenario 27 de Febrero, where just 178
fans
attended a doubleheader last Thursday).
The Toros not only
accepted the challenge in front of them,
they won all three games at Estadio Monterrey to pull a half-game ahead
of the
Sultanes in the standings. Tijuana is
now 54-26 (the best record in the Liga) while Monterrey fell to 53-26. Monclova has been a few games back in third
in the LMB North, but the Acereros have won their last eight games to
pull
four-and-a-half games out of the lead in what is shaping up to be a
dandy
division race over the last month of the regular season schedule.
Tijuana opened the series
Tuesday with a 4-3 win as Dustin
Martin's ninth-inning leadoff solo homer off reliever Thomas Melgarejo
provided
the difference. Martin's blast gave TJ a
two-run cushion that was enough to withstand a Monterrey rally in the
bottom in
the frame when closer Jason Urquidez gave up three hits, including an
RBI
single by Moises Gutierrez, and had runners on the corners with one out
before
striking out MVP candidate Chris Roberson and getting Ramon Rios to fly
out to
Corey Brown in center to end the contest with his 16th save. Martin, who has struggled his way to a .250
batting average this season, went 2-for-3 with a walk and scored twice
for
Tijuana. The loss wasted a 4-for-4 night
for Sultanes' DH Luis Juarez, last winter's Mexican Pacific League
batting
champion who's hit .447 over his past ten games to raise his LMB season
average
to .299. Toros starter Miguel Pena
allowed two runs over six innings to go to 7-2 on the year while Angel
Castro
let in three scores over six frames for Monterrey to fall to 9-3.
The Toros held off
Monterrey again on Wednesday night in a
4-3 win over the Sultanes. Tijuana
outhit the home team by a 13-6 margin, leaving ten runners on base, but
the key
hit of the night was a dribbler to the mound by Jose Guadalupe Chavez
in the
top of the sixth that enabled Roberto Lopez to come streaking in from
third
base to give the visitors a 4-2 lead.
Once again, the Sultanes came back to make it a one-run game in
the bottom
of the eighth when Zoilo Almonte poked a single into right field with
runners
at the corners to score Walter Ibarra from third, but Urquidez had a
1-2-3
ninth and struck out the last two batters to preserve the TJ lead for
his 17th
save. Chavez singled twice and doubled
as the Toros' leadoff batter, scoring once in addition to his
run-scoring
safety and three other Tijuana batters had two hits apiece. Ibarra and Leo German each had two of
Monterrey's six hits (a German double was the Sultanes' lone extra-base
hit) as
Tijuana starter Manny Barreda (3-6) allowed one run on two hits over
six
innings, striking out seven. Monterrey's
Jorge Reyes (1-2) was scuffed for ten hits in five frames in the loss,
but only
let in two runs.
Tijuana had to go into
overtime for Thursday night's 8-4
victory to complete the broom job. The
Toros scored single runs in the second (Oscar Robles doubling in Jorge
Cantu)
and third (Alfredo Amezaga socked a leadoff homer) as the MLB veterans
gave the
visitors a 2-0 advantage. Juarez evened
the game with a two-run homer in the fourth off TJ starter Horacio
Ramirez,
another MLB vet, and then took a 4-2 led
two entradas later when Almonte lofted a two-run bomb off Toros
reliever Ricky
Ramirez, who'd walked Rios to open the inning.
This time, it was Tijuana's turn to come back, scoring once in
the
eighth on Brown's leadoff homer (his LMB-leading 19th) and knotting the
contest
in the ninth when Chris Valencia came in from third when Ibarra bobbled
a
Robles grounder to short. After a
scoreless tenth inning, the Toros put four runs on the board in the top
of the
eleventh as Martin lined a two-run single off Marco Carrillo to cap the
scoring. Edwin Quirarte came in from the
bullpen to retire the Sultanes in order to end the game and series with
another
Tijuana win. Chavez, Brown and Robles
all had three hits to key the Toros' 17-hit attack, with Brown scoring
twice,
while Almonte's homer and single represented two of Monterrey's eight
hits. Pedro Villareal pitched a
scoreless ninth and tenth for the Toros to earn the win.
Marco Rivas gave up Tijuana's first two runs
in the eleventh to absorb the loss for Monterrey.
One interesting aspect of
the series was attendance at the
27,000-seat Estadio Monterrey. The
Sultanes lead all of Minor League Baseball in attendance with a 12,047
average
per opening and drew 27,529 over the three-game series with Tijuana
(all played
in triple-digit temperatures), but only 5,232 turned out for Tuesday's
game
while 6,858 were on hand Wednesday before 15,439 were in the stands for
Thursday's
finale. One Puro Beisbol
columnist mentioned earlier this week that the
Sultanes have regularly given away tickets this season to put more
backsides in
the seats, but were not giving out free ducats for the tilts with the
Toros. No word on whether the house was
papered for the Thursday night game, but it serves as a cautionary tale
for
teams in any sport who let people into their games for free and hope to
make
more money on concessions and merchandise sales: After people get used
to
attending your games for nothing, you run the risk that they'll
eventually
believe that's what your games are worth.
The Toros will move on to
Monclova Friday for a three-game
series with the Acereros while the Sultanes welcome the Mexico City
Diablos
Rojos for a weekend set in Monterrey.
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