The Major League season already has its first finalist, after the Los Angeles Dodgers mercilessly swept the Milwaukee Brewers in the fight for the National League pennant. Supported by a never-before-seen performance by Shohei Ohtani (three home runs as a batter and ten strikeouts from the mound), Dave Roberts’ students made it to the World Series for the second consecutive year and are now on the verge of becoming the first team this century to repeat the crown in the best baseball in the world.
The victory of the Angelenos has a dose of Cuban flavor due to the presence of Andy Pagés from Pinar del Río, who has been a very valuable piece for the ninth throughout the year. In the regular season he put up respectable numbers (27 home runs, 86 RBIs and an OPS of .774) and in the postseason, although his performance has decreased considerably, he has received the confidence of the management to remain as a starter.
This Friday, Pagés witnessed Ohtani’s spectacular show firsthand, the protagonist of one of the most impressive pages in the centuries-old history of the playoffs in MLB. The Japanese was the Dodgers’ starter and in that role he retired six blank innings with ten strikeouts and only two hits allowed. As if that weren’t enough, he hit three out-of-bounds hits from the batter’s box, a record-breaking performance in the record books.
Shohei’s performance was the basis of the Dodgers’ 5-1 victory, which swept the broom against Milwaukee in the Championship Series. The Angelenos did not allow more than one run in any of the four games of the match, with exceptional work from their starters Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Ohtani.
Madero at the ready, Pagés was not good against the Brewers. The boy from Arroyos de Mantua only had two hits in 14 trips to the plate (OPS of .523), although one of them served to give his team an advantage in the second match of the series.
While waiting for the Dodgers’ final roster to be announced next week, it is very likely that Pagés will become the second Cuban player to appear in the World Series in his first two MLB seasons, something that until now had only been achieved by the stellar pitcher Orlando “El Duque” Hernández in 1998 and 1999 with the Yankees.
Will Mantua double in the World Series?
It remains to be defined who will be the Dodgers’ rival in the World Series, but right now the best placed are the Seattle Mariners, who this Friday defeated Toronto 6-2 and were one step away from winning the American League pennant.
Venezuelan Eugenio Suárez was the great executioner of the Blue Jays with a pair of home runs, one of them with the bases loaded in the eighth inning when the shares were tied 2-2. His hit gave the Mariners a definitive lead after erasing a minimal deficit in that same chapter due to another homer by Cal Raleigh.
One of those who scored with the grand slam Suárez was the Cuban Randy Arozarena, another native of Arroyos de Mantua. The man from Pinar del Río went blank in two official shifts, but entered circulation twice due to a walk and a hit by a ball and scored a stolen base. In addition, he left some stellar fielding in left field when he caught a long ball from Ernie Clement that threatened to go out of bounds.
With Seattle ahead 3-2, this Championship Series now returns to Toronto, where everything will be decided between Sunday and Monday at the majestic Rogers Centre.
