For the third year in a row, a team from Mexico’s Liga Mexicana de Beisbol, the country’s summer professional league, played a pair of exhibition games against a Major League Baseball club.
And for the first time, the games were played in the MLB club’s home park, with the Sultanes de Monterrey facing the San Francisco Giants for a pair of games on Monday and Tuesday at Oracle Park. For the Giants, it was a final pair of tune-ups before Wednesday’s regular season opener against the New York Yankees at Oracle Park, and for the Sultanes, it gave one of the LMB’s top clubs a chance to measure itself against an MLB team early in the preseason.
On Monday, starter Landen Roupp struck out six over 5 1/3 innings, allowing two runs on four hits and three walks for the Giants in a 8-2 win over the Sultanes. Jung Ho Lee hit a three-run homer for San Francisco in the fourth off former MLBer Justus Sheffield. Brayan Mendoza drove in both of Monterrey’s runs with a double in the top of the fifth.
Tony Vitello’s Giants spread Tuesday’s game across the bullpen, using nine different pitchers for one inning each, holding the Sultanes to two runs on seven hits over the course of the game. Willy Adames hit a solo homer in the sixth, Bryce Eldridge hit a three-run homer in the eighth, and Tyler Fitzgerald added a two-run shot in the eighth as the Giants cruised to a 10-2 win.
The Sultanes got RBI singles from Ramiro Pena and Josh Lester in the top of the sixth.
The two games at Oracle Park drew a total of 47,892 fans.
Last year, the Sultanes hosted the Boston Red Sox at Walmart Park in Monterrey, losing 10-1 on March 24, 2025, and 12-8 on March 25, 2025. The LMB’s Diablos Rojos del Mexico took a pair of games from the New York Yankees at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu in Mexico City in 2024.
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