GUADALAJARA, Mexico – The Diablos Rojos del Mexico are nine innings away from history.
A win tonight at Estadio Panamericano in Guadalajara in game four of the 2025 Serie del Rey, would give them their 18th championship in the LMB. A win in game four would give the Reds back-to-back Serie del Rey titles, the first time a team had won consecutive titles in the Liga Mexicana de Beisbol since the Saraperos de Saltillo did it in 2009 and 2010, and the fourth time that the Diablos had accomplished the feat.
A win tonight would give the Diablos their third title in their last three appearances in the Serie, joining the 2014 club, which, coincidentally, also won in a sweep, taking the Serie del Rey in four games from the Pericos de Puebla.
If the Most Interesting Man In the World, the pitchman character in American tv commercials for the Mexican beer Dos Equis, was talking about the Diablos of late, he might say, “we don’t always go to the Serie del Rey, but when we do, we win in a sweep.”
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You have to go back to 2011, when the Diablos faced the Tigres de Quintana Roo, their eternal rival with whom they used to share Estadio Seguro Social in Mexico City, to get to their last loss in a Serie del Rey game. For the curious, it was Aug. 26, 2011 at Foro Sol in Mexico City, when the Tigres won game four 13-3 and the series, ironically, in a sweep.
The Diablos’ dominance springs from their pitching, and while they don’t have an ace along the lines of Trevor Bauer this year, they have a bullpen that shortens the game.
“I think the key of today and of all the series is truly the pitching. If we receive five innings… who comes in the sixth? Here comes the seventh. Here comes the eighth. Here comes the ninth. This is the formula,” said Diablos manager Lorenzo Bundy in Spanish following game three. “And everything starts with the opener. If the pitcher opens, we give him five innings, and then we are already in a position to use the people that I want to use. And the good thing is that these four guys don’t throw a lot of pitches.”
The four horsemen of the Diablos bullpen that have shut down the Charros this series — Kevin Gowdy, Jimmy Yacabonis, J.C. Mejia, and Tomohiro Anraku — have stifled the opposition throughout the playoffs. They’ve combined to throw 58 1/3 and allowed nine earned runs for a combined ERA of 1.38 through the playoffs, and in 11 innings in the Serie del Rey, they’ve combined to allow no runs on 10 hits and two walks.
Which brings about a question: Can four guys share the Serie del Rey MVP Award? It’d be hard to argue against the Diablos’ bullpen sharing the honor.