Pitching Is the Key: How Mexico and Dominican Republic Made the Caribbean Series Final

MEXICALI, Mexico – You don’t have to be a manager to know that good pitching is the most important element in putting together a winning baseball team, or that great pitching wins championships.

But in a short tournament like the 2025 Caribbean Series, pitching takes on a magnified role. Both finalists, the Charros de Jalisco and Leones del Escogido, had team ERA’s under 2.00 in the semifinal.

Mexico had the best pitching in the tournament, but the Dominican Republic made a single run stand up in the championship game with a stellar bullpen that stifled the Charros’ bats. The Leones’ combined one-hitter in the final was a pitching marvel, even with the five walks issued by Esmil Rogers, as the Dominican Republic escaped like Erich Weiss (you know him as Harry Houdini) from every tough spot they found themselves in.

Starter Esmil Rogers, who was named Caribbean Series MVP by the media, and three relievers, Joe Corbett, Ulises Joaquin, and Jimmy Cordero, combined for a one-hit shutout in the final, a pitching performance that was only topped by Jesus Vargas of Venezuela when he no-hit the Japan Breeze in the final game of round robin play.

“Pitching is super important to any time you’re trying to win a championship, right? Especially in a tournament where you don’t get to face the same team more than twice, right?” Benji Gil said after Mexico’s 3-1 semifinal win against Puerto Rico. “Plus, it’s a ballpark that’s big, it plays even bigger at night, and with the ball that’s being used, it plays huge. Huge!”

El Nido de las Aguilas, the home ballpark of the Aguilas de Mexicali of the Liga ARCO Mexicana del Pacifico, hosted this year’s Caribbean Series. Gil compared El Nido to the Polo Grounds, the bathtub shaped park in upper Manhattan that was the home of the New York Giants, Yankees, and Mets, that was demolished after the 1964 season. It had a cavernous outfield, and even though El Nido is much more conventionally shaped, with the dense, cool night air in the desert, the ball doesn’t carry nearly as much as it does in other ballparks around the Caribbean leagues.

On top of that, Gil noted that the baseball used weighed heavily in favor of pitchers in Mexicali.

“It just seems like the seams are a little bit wider. It appears and it gives you that feel, it’s for sure higher. Definitely higher, and I don’t know that it’s wider, but it gives you that feel because it’s so high,” Gil said. He agreed with a reporter’s comparison to the ball used in Minor League Baseball in the United States, which has higher seams than the ball used in Major League Baseball, saying that the Caribbean Series ball was somewhere between the two.

“There’s a little bit more drag. And at the same time, when you spin it, it spins more,” Gil said, confirming that breaking balls would break more and fly balls won’t fly as far due to drag. That said, with a smile, he conceded, “I’m  no physicist, right? But that’s what it kind of appears like to me.”

The ball is likely a bit softer than the MLB ball, too. The MLB ball has very low seams and is more tightly wound than balls used in the minor leagues and Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball.

Over their final two games, Gil’s Charros had a team ERA of 1.00 and a WHIP of 0.94, while Albert Pujols’ Leones had an ERA of 1.35 and a WHIP of 1.00. He got great pitching in the final game, with starter Manny Banuelos throwing five solid innings, allowing one run on three hits and three walks. His bullpen allowed one hit and one walk over five innings, but the offense couldn’t scratch out a single run against the Leones’s staff.

After the final game, the Dominican Republic’s Jose Marmolejos acknowledged the importance of pitching. 

“We knew that this was going to be a battle between pitchers because we saw this field as more of a pitcher’s field, you know? The ball doesn’t carry that much and everything and we knew that if we could score one run or maybe two, Esmiel was going to come with his stuff,” Marmolejos said. “Because he wanted this game, he had the character for this game, and he was dealing. He gave us the opportunity to get to the bullpen and they executed the job perfectly.”

Photo: Mexico’s Manny Banuelos allowed a single run over four innings in the Caribbean Series final. (Photo Courtesy of the CBPC)