Caracas Venezuela. José Rondón has had a tremendous season in Venezuelan baseball, as he seeks to pave the way for a new opportunity in the Major Leagues.
“I go to work every day with that plan, with that idea and with that focus: to see myself again in the Major Leagues,” said Rondón, an outfielder with four years of experience in the Majors with the San Diego Padres and the Chicago White Sox. , Baltimore Orioles and St. Louis Cardinals.
The 29-year-old player has had his best campaign in the Venezuelan Professional Baseball League (LVBP): he hit .338 in 56 games of the regular phase of the 2023-2024 season (72 hits in 213 at-bats), with 17 doubles, one triple and 14 home runs, 42 RBIs and 44 runs scored, and he led the circuit in bases reached, with 133. He is a candidate for Most Valuable Player.
These are numbers that he hopes will serve to place him in orbit and leave behind the controversy over the 80-game doping suspension imposed on him by Major League Baseball (MLB) in April 2022.
“All this has been due to the hard work I have been doing,” he continued in an interview with AFP in the dugout of the Leones del Caracas, his club in the LVBP.
“The strength has always been there, I always had it, I was simply leading a different game, a game of a leadoff hitter, a ninth hitter, a game of moving the ball here, moving the ball there, more of contact. I supplemented the strength I already had with a set of weights and strengthening work that I have been doing for many years.”
– “A proud” –
Rondón established personal bests in hits, extra-base hits, home runs and bases taken in an LVBP season. The previous season he had hit 11 home runs, then his best record.
He is the fifth player in the history of the Lions with two seasons with double digits in home runs, joining the retired Antonio Armas, Baudilio Díaz and Andrés Galarraga – all legends of Venezuelan baseball – and Jesús Aguilar.
“More than an honor, it is a pride, because they are players that I admired since I was little like Galarraga, players of history (…) and it is one of the greatest satisfactions I have had,” he expresses.
Although, he assures, there are still things to improve.
“(I must) continue to improve my discipline at the plate, that is something that I have been working on year after year and I have been improving it, but I can improve it much more,” he points out.
– “Espinita” –
Rondón won the championship in Venezuela last season with the Leones and almost won the Caribbean Series title, with the team losing the final against the Dominican Tigres del Licey, although the Venezuelan established a record of 15 RBIs in the classic.
“At the beginning of last season I said that I owed a debt to the fans of my team and the team. My goal, since I arrived, via change (in the 2017-2018 season), was to give the championship to this fan base and now I had the thorn of giving them the Caribbean championship,” says the patrolman.
“We think big, we think about the biggest title, and the biggest title in the Caribbean is the Caribbean Series.”
The Lions are competing in the LVBP round robin, looking for places in the final. They had an uneven start, with three wins in their first seven appearances.
erc/jt/ma
© Agence France-Presse
2024-01-11 22:12:16
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