Los Gigantes del Cibao, defending champions of Dominican professional baseball (Lidom), announced this Saturday the hiring of the Cuban gardener Dairon Whitewho worked in the Roberto Clemente League of Puerto Rico with notable results.
Wearing the Leones de Ponce flannel in the Puerto Rican winter circuit, the Camagüeyan left an offensive line of .301/.345/.361, with 55 unstoppables, 26 runs scored, 18 trailers and 25 stolen bases in 30 attempts, his most outstanding.
Blanco, 29, will be a reinforcement with an immediate impact on the Giants’ grasslands, who have suffered losses due to injury in that area of Colombian Tito Polo and Dominican José Siri, two of the regulars of mentor Luis ‘Pipe’ Urueta .
We announce the hiring of Cuban outfielder Dairon Blanco.
Blanco comes from Puerto Rico where he hit .301 with 1 HR, 18 RBIs and set a record for stolen bases with 25.#XElBack2Back pic.twitter.com/8LeXNULidZ
— Giants of Cibao ® (@Gigantes_Cibao) January 7, 2023
Jesús Mejías, general manager of the current Dominican baseball monarchs, highlighted the defensive abilities of the Cuban, who can perform in any of the outfield positions. In addition, he is a contact hitter with a lot of speed in running the bases.
The clearest proof of this last detail can be found in his numbers for the last four years in the United States Minor Leagues. With different branches of the Kansas City Royals, he has stolen 141 bases in 177 attempts, and in general he has good numbers: offensive line of .281/.345/.439, with 430 hits, 70 doubles, 31 triples, 36 home runs , 200 trailers and 252 annotated.
This is not Blanco’s first experience in Dominican winter baseball, as he was already with the Toros del Este in 2019. On that occasion, he participated in 43 duels adding the regular series and the Round Robin, in which he averaged .283/ .335/.345, with three doubles, the same number of triples, 11 RBIs, 21 runs scored, eight steals and left his OBP at .345, plus he stole eight bases.
Now the man from Camagüey will join an important Cuban army in the Dominican Republic. In the Giants, for example, he will join the Las Tunas player Henry Urrutia, and will surely have to face Roenis Elías or Yuniesky Maya, members of the Águilas Cibaeñas, or the trident of the Tigres del Licey made up of Luis Avilés Jr. ., Lorenzo Quintana and the experienced Raúl Valdez.
The man from Camagüey is looking for a good closure in the winter to fight for an invitation to the spring camps of the Kansas City Royals, an organization that gave him the opportunity to debut in MLB during the 2022 season.
In this sense, the Gigantes del Cibao are an excellent showcase for their status as champions in the Dominican Republic, and because they still have options to repeat the crown. Although they lost this Friday, they present a balance of six victories and the same number of defeats in the Dominican baseball semifinal and are embraced by the Águilas Cibaeñas, the Estrellas Orientales and the Tigres del Licey.
