Photo by Listindiario.com
On Tuesday night the Leones del Escogido defeated the Tigres del Licey by a score of 8-4 to take the nine games series and win the Dominican Winter League championship. They were led by the St. Lucie Mets manager Luis Rojas who held the same role with Leones and Columbia Fireflies manager Jose Leger who was the teams bench coach.
The Tigres came into the series as the heavy favorite after going 12-6 during the round robin first round of the playoffs. The Leones went just 9-9 and had to beat the Toros del Este in a one-game tiebreaker to get into the championship round. The General Manager for the champion Leones is former Met outfielder Moises Alou.
The only current Mets player to be a part of the Leones playoff run was Rafael Montero who pitched nine innings during the postseason allowing three runs and striking out six. He pitched on inning in the regular season allowing a run on a solo homerun and struck out two. He was hitting 91-93 MPH with his fastball during his final couple of outings according to a source in the Dominican.
Last night in the Puerto Rican Winter League the Cangrejeros de Santurce took a 3-2 championship series lead with a 3-2 victory over the Criollos de Caguas. Johnny Monell was 0 for 5 and is hitting only .125 during the final round. Batting right behind him was T.J. Rivera who went 1 for 4 and is hitting .288 during the postseason for the Criollos.
