Winter Leagues: Ramirez Homers in Colombian League Finals

The Dominican League finals start tomorrow night, with Escogido taking on Licey. They were originally scheduled to start tonight, but Licey finished tied with the Gigantes in the round robin tournament and they needed to play a one game playoff for the second spot in the finals last night. The loss by the Gigantes eliminated two Pirates players from the tournament, catcher Carlos Paulino and pitcher Elvin Ramirez. That leaves Gregory Polanco and possibly Starling Marte as the only Pittsburgh players left. Marte hasn’t played in over a week due to a groin injury. He also missed a couple games with back discomfort early last week.

In Australia on Sunday, Danny Arribas went 1-for-3 with a single. He is just 2-for-23 in his last nine games. Arribas was behind the plate, where he made his third error of the season. The error was on a throw to third base on a stolen base from former Pirates farmhand Stefan Welch, who scored on the play.

In Panama from Friday, Edgardo Munoz batted lead-off in both games of a doubleheader. In game one, he went 0-for-3 in his team’s 6-3 win. In game two, he went 2-for-3 with two stolen bases. Munoz is hitting .243 through nine games, with seven runs scored, six RBIs and five stolen bases.

Ulises Montilla, the Pirates top prospect in Panama, didn’t play Friday. It should be noted that he also left Wednesday’s game early despite the score being close at the time. His team was off on Thursday.

The Colombian League finals started Saturday night and the Tigres team of Harold Ramirez and Tito Polo dominated with an 11-1 win over Leones. Harold Ramirez hit a two-run home run. The Leones team has two Pirates pitchers on their staff, Oderman Rocha and Yhonathan Barrios. The league is slow to upload boxscores, so we will have complete stats from game one tomorrow.