Devils fall to Warriors at start of Championship Series

With two home runs by Alex Amarista, one of which was a three-run hitter, the Guerreros de Oaxaca achieved a 5-4 victory over the Diablos Rojos del México to take a 1-0 lead in the Southern Zone Championship Series, which began today at the Alfredo Harp Helú Stadium.

Amarista homered in the third inning with two teammates on board and then repeated in the fifth inning, solo, so that the Oaxacans took control and headed for victory. Both hits were connected off the Diablos’ star pitcher, Trevor Bauer.

For its part, the visitors’ pitching hung zeros from the fourth to the seventh inning, a solid . The Devils went ahead 1-0 with a home run by José Marmolejos and tied the score 3-3 in the third inning, with a double by José Pirela.

After the Warriors scored a run in the fourth (4-3) and another in the fifth (5-3), the local offense added another run until the ninth with a home run by Juan Carlos Gamboa.

Although the Reds’ offense had 11 hits in total, they went 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position, leaving 11 teammates on base. On the pitching side, Bauer suffered his first loss of 2024, after he pitched 5.0 innings of seven hits and five runs (four earned), with two walks and two strikeouts.

Bauer’s work ended with a 1-1 score in the top of the sixth inning, when play was stopped due to rain. An hour later, it was resumed and relief pitchers Conner Menez, Jimmy Yacabonis and Alex Claudio came on, who posted four scoreless innings.

Diablos and Guerreros will meet again at the ‘Diamante de Fuego’ this Sunday at 2 p.m., to star in a Game 2 in which the starting pitchers will be Radhamés Liz, for the Guerreros, and Erick Leal, for the scarlet side.

In the northern zone series, Sultanes de Monterrey came back from a six-run deficit and defeated Tecos de los Dos Laredos 7-6 to take a 2-0 lead.