Offseason Notes: DR’s Escogido Wins Caribbean Series

Today’s edition of Offseason Notes concerns the Caribbean Series entirely.

Escogido Wins Caribbean Series
Despite losing 7-0 to Venezuelan entry Tigres de Aragua, Dominican side Leones del Escogido clinched the Caribbean Series last night with the 4-3 loss of their only mathematical competitor, Mexico’s Yaquis de Obregon, to Puerto Rican club Indios de Mayaguez. (Scoreboard.)

In fact, Obregon was winning their game 3-2 heading into the bottom of the eighth, but conceded one run each in the eighth and ninth innings to lose the game.

Brief Notes
Here are some notes:

• Last night — i.e. Day Five of the six-day tournament — featured the Series’s first two home runs. Both came courtesy of the middle of Aragua’s lineup, with Luiz Jimenez hitting a three-run shot in the top of the fifth and Hector Gimenez adding his in the eighth. Both players appeared on the SCOUT batting leaderboard for the Venezuelan Winter League.

• Through five games, five players have managed to walk more than they struck out while also averaging three plate appearances per team game: Pedro Florimon (a shortstop in the Baltimore system), Miguel Rojas (SS, CIN), Jesus Feliciano (OF, NYN), Jose Constanza (OF, ATL), and Sergio Miranda (2B, MIL).

Glamorous HTML Table of Standings
Here’s a glamorous HTML table of the Caribbean Series standings through the first five game days:

Baseball on Film
Here’s a recap, courtesy ESPN Deportes, of yesterday’s Venezuela-Mexico game. The Jimenez home run comes around the 0:50 mark; Gimenez’s eighth-inning homer is about 10 seconds later. There’s also an extended interview with Milwaukee farmhand Erick Almonte, during which one is forced to wonder how Almonte ever played shortstop with that giant neck.

Today’s Games
Despite Escogido’s victory, there are still two more games today, as follows.

Obregon (MEX) at Aragua (VEN), 2pm ET
Mayaguez (PR) at Escogido (DR), 6pm ET