Series del Caribe - Final Four Determined
Friday, February 5th, 2021The round robin has identified the final four to play for the Series del Caribe championship. They will compete in a single elimination tournament. Colombia and Venezuela have been eliminated. The number one seed and undefeated Dominican Republic will go against the number four seed Panama. Puerto Rico will play against Mexico.
Puerto Rico 9 Panama 8
Panama came out charging scoring five runs in the top of the first off Jason Garcia, who could only retire two batters. He gave up five hits and walked two. Jarren Duran opened the bottom of the first with a homerun and the Puerto Ricans came climbing back. Henry Ramos and Vimael Machin each drove in two runs. Panama starter Harold Arauz could not get past the third. By the time he left the showers the Puerto Ricans had tied the score 5-5. They jumped out to a 9-6 lead going into the ninth. Panama strung together four hits and two runs off Joshua Torres. Puerto Rico had to call on Fernando Cruz to retire the final two hitters to survive the win. Panama had the tying run on third and the go ahead run on first with one out but a pop up and strike out failed to bring the runner home.
Dominican Republic 3 Colombia 2
Colombia has yet to win a Series del Caribe game in their two years of play. They almost pulled off a surprise by beating the undefeated Dominican Republic. Granted, the Dominicans had nothing to play for, already clinching their first seed ranking.
Colombia was up 2-0 for five innings. Edison Frias had shut out the Dominican bats for those first five innings. The Colombians decided to go to their bullpen and that is when the bats started making noise. Johan Camargo had an RBI single in the sixth. Melky Cabrera doubled in the seventh to tie the game. The ninth inning saw a lead off walk eventually score on a walk off single by Rangel Ravelo to keep the Dominicans undefeated.
Yunesky Maya did not get the win but went six innings for the Dominicans. He gave up two runs. Lisalverto Bonilla pitched the last three innings to earn the win. He walked one and kept Panama hitless.
Mexico 4 Venezuela 3
A loss by Mexico would have created a three way tie for the last two spots, resulting in a tie breaker. After going down 3-0 early Mexico came back to win the game 4-3. It took a three run eighth inning rally to tie the game, Sebastion Elizalde driving in one run with a double and Joey Meneses following with a two run double.
In the ninth inning Isaac Paredes led the inning off with a triple but failed to score. In the bottom of the tenth they loaded the bases with no one out and the next two batters were retired without bringing the runners home. With two outs Carlos Gamboa came up. The Venezuelans had decided to intentionally walk him after the Paredes lead off triple in the ninth. There was no place to put him for this at bat. He drove a 1-1 count into centerfield for a walk off single to put Mexico in the playoffs.
For Venezuela it was again going to the bullpen that lost the game. Logan Darnell had pitched seven shutout innings. The Venezuelan bullpen then squandered the lead, something myworld noticed far too often in this Series del Caribe.