Spring coaching continues to be two weeks away however significant baseball was performed in entrance of passionate followers Monday night time. Leones del Escogido bested Tigres del Licey in an exciting Recreation 7 of the Dominican Republic Skilled Baseball League (LIDOM) Championship Collection. Escogido received their seventeenth LIDOM championship and snapped a nine-year title drought.
Escogido’s first-year supervisor? Future Corridor of Famer Albert Pujols.
The Recreation 7 pitching matchup featured longtime massive leaguer Johnny Cueto and former Orioles prospect Radhames Liz, who has carved out an extended profession in Asia and the Mexican League. Emilio Bonifácio, Harold Ramírez, Jean Segura, and Jose Siri have been among the many recognizable names within the two lineups. Ditto Rays wunderkind Junior Caminero, who offered the decisive blow for Escogido.
With the rating tied 5-5 within the high of the ninth, Caminero launched a towering 454-foot go-ahead solo dwelling run to present Escogido the lead. Have a look at the eagerness and the vitality. I clock this dwelling run trot at 56 seconds:
“I’ve no phrases,” Caminero mentioned after the sport. “We clinched the seventeenth! I owe to my household and the Leones. I am grateful for his or her belief.”
Caminero went 4 for five with two doubles and a homer in Recreation 7, and 9 for 26 (.346) with 6 RBI within the sequence. That earned him sequence MVP honors. Caminero was additionally named MVP of the earlier postseason spherical.
Though Escogido went on to a 6-5 win in Recreation 7 (field rating), the underside of the ninth inning didn’t come straightforward. Longtime massive leaguer Rafael Montero, who blew the save in Recreation 6 on Sunday, put runners on second and third, and was bailed out by Sócrates Brito’s game-ending sliding catch in proper area. This was the ultimate out of the LIDOM Championship Collection:
Escogido’s Recreation 7 win got here after a Recreation 6 thriller on Sunday. Licey infielder Gustavo Nunez, a veteran of 11 minor-league seasons and not using a single big-league cup of espresso, launched a game-tying two-run homer with two outs within the ninth inning off Montero. Licey went on to win the sport 7-4 in 14 innings to drive Recreation 7.
Nunez, 36, has 43 dwelling runs in over 1,600 skilled video games, which prompted Pujols to have his bat examined. The bat was inspected and located to be authorized.
“It was a troublesome first 12 months as a supervisor. I am studying the best way to come to phrases with criticism,” Pujols mentioned after Recreation 7. “It was an important season and a good remaining sequence. You do not have to credit score me. Credit score my gamers. I tried to do my greatest.”
LIDOM is a six-team winter league and every crew performs roughly 49 video games throughout the common season. 4 of the six groups qualify for the postseason, and people 4 groups get to draft six gamers apiece from the 2 non-postseason groups to assist them the remainder of the best way. Nunez was certainly one of Licey’s six choices.
The Caribbean Collection is an annual match that includes winter league groups from numerous Latin American nations. This 12 months’s match begins Friday and can embrace groups from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and, for the primary time, Japan. This 12 months’s Caribbean Collection might be broadcast in English on MLB Community.
