By Bruce Baskin
The Mexican Pacific League’s ERA leader is finished for the winter. Former major leaguer Travis Blackley (pictured), who was 5-1 with a 2.09 ERA for the Hermosillo Naranjeros, is back home in his native Australia and through pitching for the defending champion after signing a 2011 contract with a team in the Korea Baseball Organization. His new team has ordered him to stop pitching in Mexico despite a Naranjeros website claim that Blackley “did his utmost to get permission” to return to Hermosillo for the rest of the winter.
To replace Blackley on the roster, the Naranjeros picked up another ex-MLB lefty, Randy Keisler, off the Obregon Yaquis roster. Keisler, who went 4-4 in parts of three seasons with the Reds, Athletics and Cardinals between 2005 and 2007, was signed by Obregon in early December after a 3-3 summer with the Mexican League’s Laguna Vaqueros in 2010, but never pitched an inning for the Yaquis.
To replace Blackley on the roster, the Naranjeros picked up another ex-MLB lefty, Randy Keisler, off the Obregon Yaquis roster. Keisler, who went 4-4 in parts of three seasons with the Reds, Athletics and Cardinals between 2005 and 2007, was signed by Obregon in early December after a 3-3 summer with the Mexican League’s Laguna Vaqueros in 2010, but never pitched an inning for the Yaquis.
Bruce Baskin is the Editor/Producer at the BASEBALL MEXICO website.
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Eric Bynum is Managing Editor here at Baseball de World and an ESL teacher in South Korea. He has played and/or written about baseball for the past 30 years and is an avid Atlanta Braves fan. Eric also writes for Braves Baseball World and for Call to the Pen.
