Back in August, baseball fans fond of a wager would have got slim odds on the Boston Red Sox not making it into the MLB playoffs. Mexican fans were especially excited. Their very own slugger Adrian “Titan” Gonzalez was leading most of the stats and a successful post-season could have tipped the balance for his MVP shot.
The Red Sox’s dramatic September slump (6-19) and agonizing final regular season game loss to the Orioles put paid to that scenario, as well as Terry Francona’s seven-year relationship with the ball club.
But Mexico still has much to cheer about this October in the guise of Yovani Gallardo, the Milwaukee Brewers’ 25-year-old pitcher, who carried on his fine regular season form (17-10) by giving up just one run and four hits in eight innings in the National League Division Series opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks last Friday. And today (Friday, October 7, 4 p.m. CT) he gets the chance for even more glory as he takes to the mound in the deciding game five of the series against the D-Backs (2-2).
Overshadowed somewhat by Gonzalez’s epic season, Gallardo is now getting all the attention he deserves both north and south of the border. Born in the state of Michoacan, he moved north at an early age and was drafted in 2004 after graduating from Trimble Tech High School in Texas.
Eulogies for Gallardo – always referred to as Mexican by this country’s media but mostly as Mexican-American in the United States – poured in after his win last week in the playoff opener. “If you look at the last month, he’s really taken a step forward,” Brewers star Ryan Braun said. “I put him up there with any other ace in baseball.”
Gallardo has “matured into one of the best homegrown pitchers the Milwaukee Brewers have produced,” wrote Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel this week.
Meanwhile, Gonzalez was left trying to fathom exactly what went wrong for the Red Sox in September. He surprised some fans by wondering if the season’s conclusion hadn’t been written in the heavens. “I’m a firm believer that God has a plan and it wasn’t in his plan for us to move forward,” he said after the final game.
He also suggested the Red Sox’s grueling television schedule had hurt the team’s chances.
Still, Gonzalez needn’t feel sorry for himself for too long. He’s on a seven-year contract worth 154 million dollars and his stats this year speak for themselves: Batting average: .338 (2nd place in MLB), RBIs: 117 (5th), Hits: 213 (1st), OBP: .410 (6th), Home Runs: 27 (32nd). For Red Sox fans, April 2012 can’t come soon enough.
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