The landscape of baseball is on the verge of making a radical addition of new soil as part of its scenery. The Houston Astros swept the Los Angeles Angels on May 4 and 5 in the third MLB series held in Monterrey, Mexico this season.
The Cincinnati Reds played the St. Louis Cardinals in Monterrey on April 13 and 14, and the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks played a pair of Spring Training games there, as well.
In fact, the Astros played a two-game exhibition series in Mexico City in March 2016 against the San Diego Padres.
Related: Los Astros y Los Padres Juegan en Mexico City
More games are being penciled in and the notion of adding a team in Mexico in the near future is being floated around the MLB offices, when next the commissioner authorizes expansion.
“This is very important for me,” Astros’ GM Jeff Luhnow told SportsCenter Mexico recently, according to ESPN.com. “It’s very exciting to be able to go to Mexico as the general manager of a major league team, and hopefully in the future we will have a team in the league, either in Monterrey, in Mexico City or in Guadalajara. I’m going to fight to get a team in Mexico because it would be ideal.”
Luhnow was born and raised in Mexico City, attended schools there through the 10th grade, and is fluent in Spanish, an accomplishment the many Latin players on the Astros appreciate.
“I know that [Astros president] Reid Ryan is keen on growing the number of Mexican ballplayers coming to the club,” Luhnow continued. “There’s a lot of talent and a lot of players who don’t get the opportunity to play in the US. I’m going to support a lot of this.”
“We have signed many Mexican players to our farm system, and hopefully in the future we will have many more,” Luhnow concluded.
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Roberto Osuna, Astros
Houston’s right-handed closer, Roberto Osuna Quintero, 24, was born in the coastal city of Guasave, Sinaloa, in northwest Mexico.
Osuna quit school at 12 to work in the fields near his home, digging potatoes and picking tomatoes, according to The National Post. He has twin brothers and a sister, all younger, and his dad pitched for 22 years in the Mexican League, but there was little money in that. The family was “very poor,” Osuna says. He was embarrassed not to be in school with his peers.
“It was a hard road,” he said. “When I was growing up everyone was against me. Everybody. Leaving school at 12 in Mexico, people think you’re crazy, you’re lazy.”
Signed as a 16-year-old by the Toronto Blue Jays, he became the first player born in 1995 to play in MLB on his April 2015 debut.
On July 30, 2018, in a loud and controversial trade, the Blue Jays dealt Osuna to Houston for embattled reliever Ken Giles and two minor league pitchers.
Entering play on April 19, Osuna is second in the American League in saves with seven. His microscopic .074 batting average against would lead the league if his 8.1 innings pitched qualified him (same with his league-leading 1.08 ERA and 0.24 WHIP).
Jose Hernandez-Urquidy, AA Corpus Christi Hooks
Jose Luis Hernandez, born in the same state as Osuna, but the beach resort city of Mazatlan, only recently added the family name “Urquidy” to his handle. Also like Osuna, Urquidy was born in 1995, was a teenage international free agent signee, and will hit 24 on May Day. The six-foot, 180-pounder is a right-handed starter and owns an 11-9 record, a 2.96 ERA, and a K/BB ratio of just over 5 (5.04) in his 234.1 IP in his Houston pro career of three-plus years (he missed all of 2017 with an apparent injury).
Jose Bravo, Advanced-A Fayetteville Woodpeckers
Jose Luis Bravo is a 6’3″, 185-pound right-handed starter for the Astros’ new High-A Carolina League Fayetteville affiliate. The Astros signed the 19-year-old in July 2016 out of the border town of Tijuana, next door to San Diego. Another one who missed the 2017 season on the IL, Bravo, nonetheless, has impressed Houston in his 75.2 innings pitched, to the tune of a 3.69 ERA, and a nearly 11-1 K/BB ratio (64 whiffs, six walks).
Humberto Castellanos, Full Season Class A Quad Cities River Bandits
Houston signed the 5’11”, 170-pound infielder Castellanos in early 2015 after his five-month stay with the Diablos Rojos de Mexico, and made him a reliever. His three-plus seasons have produced a tidy 2.91 ERA in 151.2 IP, but his control needs to improve (approximately 4/1 K/BB ratio). He was raised in the inland city of Tepatitlan, Jalisco.
Cesar Salazar, Quad Cities
Catcher Cesar‘s route to the Astros was slightly more circuitous than the others, as it includes a swing through the University of Arizona. The squat (5’9″, 185-pound) left-handed backstop, 23, was raised in the northwest Mexico city of Hermosillo, Sonora, and was selected in the seventh round of 2018’s draft by Houston.
Alejandro Flores, Class A Short Season Tri-City ValleyCats
They must build catchers in Hermosillo. Guillermo Alejandro, a switch-hitting backstop, is a 23-year-old, 6’1″, 180-pounder. He and Salazar had to have known each other growing up in Hermosillo. Signed by the Atlanta Braves in 2012 as an international free agent, a 2016 release led to a 13-player intra-Mexican League trade involving Flores the next year. The Washington Nationals signed him in the spring of 2018, and Houston picked him up on waivers toward year’s end.
Juan Pablo Lopez, Tri-City
Lopez comes from the same city as the Astros’ Osuna, and is primarily a reliever, as well. A spindly 6’4″, 170-pound 20-year-old southpaw, Lopez was signed by Houston in July 2016. Still raw, his challenge will be to harness his control and stay clear of contact as he progresses.
Gerardo Bojorquez, Rookie League GCL Astros
Gerardo Andres Bojorquez, like all but two of these eight, is a pitcher… a right-hander who splits his time between the rotation and the bullpen. The 6’3″, 195-pounder was raised in Nogales, Sonora, a city of 220,000 on the border with Arizona. Houston signed the 18-year-old a week before Christmas in 2015. He spent three months on the IL in 2018, missing the entire season, but has put together a 4.93 ERA in his 102.1 IP, with a nearly 2:1 K/BB ratio (81-39) in his two Houston rookie league seasons.
Related: Jackie Robinson and the Role of Mexico in the Racial Integration of MLB