After traveling from Mexico City to Guadalajara on Friday, the Diablos and the Charros de Jalisco square off in game three tonight at 8 p.m. EDT at Estadio Panamericano, where the Charros desperately need a win. They’ve gone 4-4 in the playoffs at Panamericano, having won one and lost two in each of the first two rounds before taking the opening pair of games in the Zona Norte Serie Campeonato from the Sultanes de Monterrey.
“We’re halfway there, but we haven’t achieved anything yet because we still have four games to win. Even so, we know we’re already halfway there,” Diablos manager Lorenzo Bundy said after game two.
Luis Ivan Rodriguez starts for the Charros tonight, making his first appearance of the series and sixth start of the playoffs. He’s thrown 20 1/3 innings with a 4.43 ERA, allowing 10 runs on 21 hits and 10 walks with 13 strikeouts.
He’ll face Brooks Hall of the Diablos, who has a 5.79 ERA in 23 1/3 innings across five starts of his own, allowing 15 runs on 30 hits and 10 walks with eight strikeouts in the playoffs.
“Obviously, Brooks Hall is a pitcher with plenty of experience to pitch five or six good innings for us, with good pitching, so we have high expectations for Game 3 with Hall in the center of the diamond, where I think he’ll give us a good start in Jalisco,” Bundy said in Spanish in a press conference following game two.
While two games constitute a small sample size, Rodriguez, quite obviously, has the tougher task in game three, facing a Diablos lineup that has produced 20 runs in two games and is dangerous from top to bottom. Every Diablos’ starter has at least one hit in the first two games, and eight of nine regulars have scored at least one run. Allen Cordoba continues to come through in the clutch for the Reds, having driven in five runs and went 4-for-5 with four RBIs in the Diablos’ 12-2 win in game two. New Jersey native Jose Marmolejos, who had some time in the Major Leagues with the Seattle Mariners, is 7-for-9 with four runs scored and a homer. Carlos Perez is 5-for-9. They’re hot.
Meanwhile, Brooks, the journeyman starter, just has to keep the Diablos in the game. Despite having a lineup with plenty of MLB experience, the Charros are just 17-for-65 through the first two games and have drawn five walks and have mustered just one run (of five they’ve scored) off the Diablos’ pen. If Hall can go five innings and hand a lead off to the bullpen, the relievers could take it the rest of the way.
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