They’re getting the Mariachi band back together.
After finding the country’s greatest success in a team sports tournament at the World Baseball Classic two years ago, Mexico has announced that the same three executives who led the team to a third-place finish at the 2023 World Baseball Classic will return to run the program for the 2026 WBC.
La fórmula exitosa regresa y más fuerte que nunca ????????
¡Bienvenidos de regreso! ????????
Vamos por ese Clásico Mundial 2026 ???????? #MéxicoDeMiSangre ???? pic.twitter.com/W9i6QBWgug
— Novena México ????????⚾ (@MexicoBeis) April 17, 2025
Rodrigo Lopez will return as general manager, Jorge Campillo will return as sports manager, and Mariana Patraca will return as operations manager for Mexico’s 2026 entry at the WBC.
Lopez is a former pitcher who pitched 11 seasons in Major League Baseball with six different teams and is now a Spanish-language broadcaster for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Campillo, too, is a former MLB pitcher, having pitched for the Atlanta Braves and Seattle Mariners before returning to Mexico and pitching in the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol with the Tigres de Quintana Roo. Patraca, who pitched for Mexico’s national team in softball, is the international operations manager for the Arizona Diamondbacks and served as operations manager for the Dominican Republic baseball team at the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where the D.R. took home a bronze medal.
Those three directed Mexico to a win in Pool C play at Chase Field in Phoenix, Ariz., where they went 3-1 with wins against the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, and advanced to the quarterfinals at loanDepot Park in Miami.
In Miami, Mexico beat Puerto Rico 5-4 to advance to the semifinals, where they came within three outs of knocking off eventual champion Japan, falling 6-5 in the bottom of the ninth when Shohei Ohtani and Ukyo Shuto scored on a double off the wall by Munetaka Murakami to end the game.
With the appointment of these three officials coupled with the announcement last month that Benji Gil would return as manager, Mexico is returning the entire management structure from 2023.
“He was the manager and he is the manager,” Horacio de la Vega, the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol president, told Septima Entrada;s Irving Furlong last month.
Gil served as manager for Mexico at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, the 2024 WBSC Premier12, and led the Charros de Jalisco to the 2025 Caribbean Series championship game.
“The team we will select during the next 12 months will give us a lot to talk about,” Gil said in March. “We will be able to dream about being world champions. It’s our goal.”
Photo: Mexico manager Benji Gil and the team’s top management from the 2023 World Baseball Classic will return for the 2026 event. (Photo courtesy of CBPC)
