New York, N.Y. – In the second year of the Titanes del Caribe “La Revancha” event, in front of 30,795 fans in attendance at Citi Field, the Aguilas Cibaenas beat the Tigres del Licey 3-2 on a game-winning single in the left side of the infield from pinch hitter Bladimir Restituyo in the bottom of the ninth inning on Sunday afternoon.
The 2024 Titanes del Caribe event does not count towards both teams records in the 2024-25 LIDOM regular season.
The Aguilas Cibaenas are currently fourth in the 2024 LIDOM regular season, with a record of 7-9, and the Tigres del Licey are second, with a record of 9-8.
The Aguilas Cibaenas had two errors during their win on Sunday.
Aguilas Cibaenas manager Yadier Molina’s pitching staff with starting pitcher Johnny Cueto, relief pitchers Dinelson Lamet, Nick Wittgren, Amir Garrett, Carlos Espinal, Keone Kela, Jonathan Hernandez, Richard Rodriguez, and Junior Fernandez combined for throwing nine innings, allowing four hits, two earned runs, four walks, and nine strikeouts.
Tigres del Licey manager Gilbert Gomez’s pitching staff with starting pitcher Lisalverto Bonilla, relief pitchers Carlos Contreras, Andrew Perez, Juan Then, Felix Cepeda, Miguel Diaz, Misael Tamarez, Ben Heller, and Jean Carlos Mejia threw 8.2 innings, allowing eight hits, two earned two earned runs, two walks, and eight strikeouts.
The first two runs of the game did not come until the top of the third inning when Tigres del Licey shortstop Liover Peguero rocked a ground ball two-run single into left field, scoring left fielder Logan Davidson and center fielder Emilio Bonifacio and took a 2-0 lead.
“I thought it was great to be able to get ahead in the game. Peguero continued to swing a hot bat to put those two runs on the board and to put pressure on them. I thought we executed today with that and to give everyone a shot today to play alongside playing a competitive game. We wanted to win today to have some momentum going back to the Dominican Republic, but the fact that we saw some good results today is a good outlook,” Gomez said during the postgame press conference.
The Aguilas Cibaenas did not get on the board until the bottom of the sixth inning, when pinch hitter Julio E. Rodriguez lifted a sacrifice fly to center field with Tigres del Licey center fielder Alan Cerda diving for the ball on his glove side, Aguilas Cibaenas second baseman Cesar Prieto came into to score to cut the lead to one run at 2-1.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, the Aguilas Cibaenas tied the game up at two with right fielder Alfredo Reyes hit a slow ground ball to catcher Jommer Hernandez as he threw over to first base, Aguilas Cibaenas second baseman Luis Valenzuela came into score to nod the game up at 2-2.
During the bottom of the ninth inning, Gomez called upon Mejia in an attempt to keep the Aguilas Cibaenas offense at bay.
A few moments later, Mejia walked left fielder Yefri Perez with one out as the winning run reached first base.
The next batter, Aguilas Cibaenas designated hitter Eddys Leonard, struck out on a drop third strike swinging, with Perez going on the pitch and heading towards second base; he would round second and head to third base safely. Leonard also reached first safely to make it runners on first and third with one out and the winning run 90 feet away.
Restituyo came up to the plate and swung at the first pitch with an 81.7 mph slider that hit a slow roller in the six hole, with Leonard coming in to score the winning run to beat the Tigres del Licey 3-2 in the first game of the 2024 Titanes del Caribe “La Revancha” event.
“We took some good at-bats from the bench today, and that’s a big part. That was a big run to get us on the left side of the column, and with the bullpen that we have, we kept the score close for us to make a run at the end, and that’s what we did tonight”, Molina said during the postgame press conference.
In November 2023, the first year of the Titanes del Caribe event, 90,902 fans attended all three games at Citi Field.
Latin Events are the promoters for the second straight year with Titanes del Caribe.
Latin Events is operated by Felix Cabrera and Pedro Zamora.
Cabrera is the founder of Felix Cabrera Presents and Zamora is the founder of Zamora Live and host active events across the country with music entertainment events in sports arenas and night clubs throughout populated Latin American communities in the United States.
The two games of the Titanes del Caribe event for 2024 were supposed to be played at Yankee Stadium but were canceled because of the high cost of leasing for two games to be played in the Bronx, N.Y. were at $2 million to have the Tigres del Licey and the Aguilas Cibaenas play on November 8-9.
The Aguilas Cibaenas won the 2023 Titanes del Caribe series at Citi Field, sweeping the series against the Tigres del Licey. However, the games did not count in the 2023 LIDOM standings.
The Tigres del Licey, based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, are the defending LIDOM champs and advanced to the championship game in the Caribbean Series each of the last two years. Known as “El Glorioso,” the club has won 24 LIDOM titles and 11 Caribbean Series titles since its founding in 1907.
Tigres del Licey has reached the Caribbean Series final in the last two events and won 4-1 in Caracas, Venezuela, over the Leones del Caracas at Estadio Simon Bolivar and lost in Miami to the Tiburones de La Guaira 4-1 at loanDepot Park.
The Aguilas Cibaenas, based in Santiago de los Caballeros, have won 22 LIDOM titles and six Caribbean Series titles. They most recently captured both in 2021 when they defeated the Criollos de Caguas in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico.
All 2024-25 LIDOM regular season games will be televised live on MLB.TV with a paid subscription until January’s final game of the league’s best-of-seven championship series.
The two remaining games of the 2024 Titanes del Caribe event will be in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at Hiram Bithorn Stadium on Saturday, December 7, and Sunday, December 8.
No game start times have been announced for the Titanes del Caribe event in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Both Teams Will Resume Action In The 2024-25 LIDOM Regular Season: The Aguilas Cibaenas will play the Toros del Este at 6:30 p.m. EST on November 12 in Santiago, Dominican Republic, at Estadio Cibao, and the Tigres del Licey will play the Gigantes del Cibao at home in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on November 12 at 6:30 p.m. EST at Estadio Quisqueya Juan Marichal.
