Neither Gregory Polanco nor Starling Marte played last night, and Marte may not return to play Winter ball this year, but their Escogido team clinched home field advantage for the finals. With two games left in the round robin tournament, any of the other three teams could pull out the second spot. Polanco played Tuesday night and went 0-for-5, though he scored once and drove in a run. He had not played since December 30th.
From Puerto Rico on Wednesday night, Benji Gonzalez went 1-for-3 with a walk, RBI and run scored in his team’s 7-2 win. For the second game in a row, he was involved in three double plays on defense. Gonzalez is hitting .229 in ten playoff games and the RBI was his second.
Mel Rojas Jr. finally got his first hit of the playoffs, collecting a pinch-hit double in the ninth inning. Rojas is 1-for-9 in five playoff games and he hasn’t started since game two. His team is 2-8 and has already been eliminated from the finals.
From Panama on Tuesday, Ulises Montilla went 0-for-2, though he drove in one run and drew three walks in his team’s 11-10 loss in extra innings. Montilla is hitting .227 through seven games, with an .855 OPS.
Edgardo Munoz went 1-for-6 in the same game, scoring three runs and stealing three bases. Munoz also drove in a run and had a walk. He is hitting .226 in seven games, with seven runs scored and five RBIs.
In Australia, Sam Kennelly has been competing in the U18 National Youth Championships. The tournament just wrapped up and Kennelly had a .268/.311/.439 in 11 games. He drove in a team high 13 runs and scored ten times. In the Australian Baseball League, Kennelly has been splitting his time between first base and second base. In the U18 tournament, he played nine games at shortstop, one at first base and one as the designated hitter.
Nick Hutchings also played in the tournament and did not do well in his two starts. He pitched a total of 8.2 innings, giving up eight runs on 11 hits and five walks. There was one highlight to his tournament, 16 of those 25 outs he recorded were strikeouts.
The two Pirates farmhands faced each other three times in game one of the tournament. Hutchings picked up a strikeout in the first meeting, then he got Kennelly to fly out to right field. In the third at-bat, Kennelly had an RBI double. Following a double from the batter after Kennelly, Hutchings was taken out of the game.
