sports

Panamanians in Major League Baseball

Batting

Player & Team                         HR           RBI        Avg.

Carlos Lee, Houston                  19            80         .292

Carlos Ruiz, Philadelphia            3            33         .262

Olmedo Saenz, Dodgers            3             14         .205

Pitching

Player & Team                          W-L                SO             SV              ERA

Manny Corpas, Colorado          3-2                  40                4                2.44

Mariano Rivera, Yankees          2-3                  41              15                3.10

Notes

After a truly horrible start to the season, Mariano Rivera and the New York Yankees seems to be hitting their stride. Rivera notoriously begins his seasons slowly, getting better as the weeks go by. Although his statistics for the year don't make him look like the superstar he has been, at the moment batters are finding it very hard to hit Rivera's pitching. The Yanks are seven and half games behind the Red Sox in their division, so just past mid-season they still have an outside chance of qualifying for post-season play.

Olmedo Saenz isn't playing very much and isn't playing so well this year, but the Dodgers are leading their division so we may see him in the post-season.

His team, the Houston Astros, appear unlikely to make the playoffs this year, but meanwhile Carlos Lee is leading the National League in runs batted in.

At the Pan-American Games Panama's baseball team beat the mighty Cubans, but lost a couple of other games in the first round and got eliminated. Cuba recovered from its thrashing by the Panamanians and eventually won the gold medal.