Gigantes' Title Winning Campaign
The Gigantes de Rivas, or Rivas Giants in English, are a team based along the Pan-American Highway some 63 miles down the road from the Nicaraguan capital, Managua, on the west bank of Lake Cocibolca.
They began their season in the Liga Beisbol Profesional de Nacional (League of National Professional Baseball), or LBPN for short, with high expectations. With current and former Major League talent on the roster, the Giants had clearly signalled their intentions for the season to the rest of the league, win it all.
They struggled early in the season, finishing the regular season with 13 wins and 19 losses, just sneaking into the final round robin place for the next phase of the season. The round robin phase of the season, for which the top 4 of the 5 teams who compete in the regular season qualify, saw Rivas gain much needed momentum and begin to live up to the hype surrounding the team. Finishing the round with a 7-5 record meant they comfortably qualified for the 'Finale Series' in second place and would face the Tigres de Chinandega in the hope of securing their third national championship.
Rivas and Chinandega matched each other win-for-win in the opening 4 games of the Finale Series, with a number of close games providing intriguing late night entertainment for those on the this side of the Atlantic. Fortunately for Gigantes, they were able to secure a road win against Tigres in game 5 and so would be playing the potential title winning game on home soil. In front of a sell-out crowd at the Yamil Ríos Ugarte Stadium (It's became quite clear that Nicaragua is taking a somewhat lax approach to the coronavirus pandemic) Rivas routed their northern opponents 16-3 to secure their first National championship since 2016. Yohan Flande, a former Colorado Rockie, gave up just 1 run in 8 innings before receiving MVP honours at the end of the game.
Cheslor Cuthbert's Performance
Signing Cuthbert to play winter ball in Nicaragua was, understandably, quite a coup for not just the Rivas organisation but the league as a whole. Active Major League talent can be somewhat hard to come by in a country that has produced only a handful of main stay Major Leaguers itself. Unlike nations such as the Dominican Republic with an established, whilst mildly unethical, pipeline to the US, the LBPN is not even a recognised winter league.
Cuthbert only had a single at bat during the 2020 season, as a pinch hitter for the Chicago White Sox, before being DFA'd and picked up by the Reds on a minor league deal. Before that he made regular appearances for the Kansas City Royals between 2015 and 2019.
Despite his lack of recent Major League playing time, expectations for Cuthbert were obviously still high, and it's fair to stay he lived up to those expectations. Cheslor made 271 plate appearances across the regular season and round robin phase, finishing with a line of .273/.401/.470 and bagging 15 home runs, making him one of the best hitters in the league. Hopefully, Cheslor can make some more regular appearances in the big leagues in 2021 and give the baseball mad people of one of Central Americas poorest nations another Nicaraguense to cheer for.
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