Former Industriales pitcher COMPLAINED about injustices in Chicago: “That’s why I said crying that they take me out”

By Yasel Porto

Although it fills many of us with pride, there have been Cuban players who have reached the Major Leagues without having the level for it or with statistics in the Minor Leagues that are good enough to support their promotion. Sometimes the combination of several factors, luck included, has at least made it possible to fulfill the dream, no matter how temporary it may have been.

At the same time there are those who have experienced the opposite situation, of having the conditions and above all a performance for several years to receive the call of the first team at least once. In that case there were several, including two closers who stood out with Industriales like Hassan Pena and Armando Rivero.

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With the last one I recently talked about the subject, and there he had the opportunity to expose in great detail the bitter experience he had within the Chicago Cubs organization. The star reliever of the last national champion Industriales (2010) even spoke of the hard moment in which he ended up crying after the final break with the 2016 World Series monarchs.

For the most demanding fan or specialist, Rivero did what he had to do in the Minors. Especially in the AAA class with the Iowa team.

In 2014 he closed with a balance of 5-1, 11 saves, 2.22 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 100 strikeouts in 65 innings between AA and AAA. A year later he lowered his WHIP even further to 0.98 with a 3.16 ERA in the stabilizer role all season at the level closest to the majors. To that behavior we had to add his skills from the box, with a very powerful fastball and a good pitching command that he used with great control.

It seemed that 2016 would be the moment to materialize the longing of all, precisely the year that the Cubs broke the streak of 108 years without winning a World Series. There are those who speculate that the arrival of Aroldis Chapman from Holguin had a considerable influence on staying all the time in the AAA.

But he doesn’t think that reason had anything to do with it, or that there were too many relievers on the main team. “They were very unfair to me,” he commented. In fact, he couldn’t find a logical explanation for the silence of the phone for a whole year in which he finished with PCL of 2.22, WHIP of 1.12 and mark of 2-2.

After that, everything fractured with the tenants of Wrigley Field, with a last meeting with the board quite painful for the native of the Mayabeque town of Melena del Sur. It marked his farewell to the franchise after asking with tears in his eyes to be released at once.

Below I invite you to expand on what happened with Rivero, during and after his four-season stay in the North Chicago franchise through the pitcher himself, who is practically retired as a professional baseball player.