It was announced back in July last year, Major League Baseball was planning to play certain ballgames in foreign countries from 2018 trough 2021. The original list included games in Asia and opening days outside of the U.S. Fast forward to the present year and those plans have now become a reality. Puerto Rico just hosted a regular season series and Mexico is still to come. While there will be only 5 games outside the states this year, they are very much worth watching.
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico has already hosted two games series in the middle of power outages that impacted the entire island. The series featured the Cleveland Indians and the Minnesota Twins. Hiram Bithorn Stadium was home to two great games to watch.
Game 1:
Game one saw Jake Odorizzi of the Twins facing Corey Kluber of the Indians. The ballgame remained tight for the first four innings, until the hometown hero stepped up to the plate. Puerto Rico’s Francisco Lindor hit a 2-run homer in the fifth inning, giving the Indians a 2-0 lead. Jose Ramirez and Michael Brantley did the same an inning later as Cleveland was now up by four. After the tribe added one more run to the scoreboard, the Twins were finally able to produce a single run. However, it was too little too late for the Minnesota club as Yonder Alonso sealed the deal with one more long ball.
Cleveland 6 – Minnesota 1
Game 2:
Game two of the series was a much different story. For starters, the game was almost twice as long as the one played a night before. It took 16 innings in order for a team to win. Puerto Rican pride was running high once again as Bayamon native Jose Berrios took the mound for the Twins. Berrios looked dominant trough his seven innings of work. It was not until the 14th inning that a home run by Cleveland’s DH Edwin Encarnacion turned the zero on the scoreboard into a one. Nonetheless, the Twins were able to even things out in the bottom of the inning as Miguel Sano went for the fences. After both teams had used their entire bullpens, an RBI single by center fielder Ryan LaMarre put an end to the thriller.
Cleveland 1 – Minnesota 2
Mexico
Mexico will also serve as host to an upcoming MLB series. Mexico City was home to a spring training series between the Houston Astros and the San Diego Padres. While The Friars will participate in this upcoming series as well, this time it will be very different. This time around the Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers will play up north as Monterrey will host a three games regular season series starting on May 4th.
That One Thing Done Right
These two international series take place in the middle of a very confusing era for Major League Baseball. Commissioner Rob Manfred seems to be obsessed with problems that only exist in his head. In recent times, it seems as if “pace of play” and “the length of the game” were the only two phrases capable of coming out of his mouth. This has led to calamities such as the pitch clock or the possibility of adding a runner on base for extra innings. Add to that the bizarre free agent market we had during this past offseason, and the big leagues appear to be flipped upside down. At least with regards to off field matters.
All of that makes the MLB International Series look like an even brighter idea. To begin with, it has been the only reasonable idea that has come out of the Manfred administration in a while. Not only that, but given the success previous games outside the U.S. have had, it was only a matter of time for the MLB regular season to visit other baseball countries on this side of the world. This is in fact, that one thing the commissioner’s office has actually done right so far during the Manfred era.
What Our Game Needs
It is a simple idea to execute. Yes, flying an entire team to Mexico, Japan or, Puerto Rico is definitely more expensive than adding a base runner, or limiting mound visits. However, this does good not only to Major League Baseball, but to baseball itself. International games will not try to innovate baseball. They will not try to change the pace of play. At the end of the day, those games are just plain, simple ballgames. What those plain ballgames do is bring world-class baseball to the fans that cannot buy season tickets. To the fans that will not leave the ballpark regardless of the score, those who need this game the most.
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