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02/27/25 - The Pirates defended their SBL Masters League title successfully after winning the best-of-3 championship series against the Brewers in two straight games at the Francisco “Tan Ko” Palacios Baseball Field.
The rain held off long enough for the Pirates to blow the Brewers out of the water with a huge 47-12 victory on Wednesday to seal their second championship in a row. In their first game on Monday, the Pirates clinched the advantage with a 29-18 win.
The Pirates rode on the waves of their momentum from the regular season when they won eight straight games and secured the most sought after prize—the trophy—as they didn’t hold off laying waste to their opponents in the postseason and in the finals.
Although short on pitchers in the finals, the Pirates’ Derron Flores took it upon himself to shut down the Brewers and give them six strong innings in the second game, while finals MVP Pete Tomokane put on a stellar performance in the box to complement the gem on the mound. He hit three doubles and collected nine RBIs, and went 6-10 in both games.
The Brewers, on the other hand, could not get past the pitching and defense wall that the Pirates put up and scored the majority of their 12 runs in the first inning. The game was close and hotly contested until the second inning when the Pirates broke through the levees and drowned out Brewer pitching.
The Pirates went on to put up huge offensive numbers after a quiet third inning, as they scored seven in the fourth, seven in the fifth, 17 in the fifth, and six in the seventh inning. When the Brewers couldn’t stop the bleeding of runs in the fifth, the trophy was already basically etched for the Pirates. However, the Brewers were the home team and still fought until the bottom of the last inning, but in the end, they were not able to get another run off Flores.
Pirates manager Jay Kintol said of the finals, “It was great. We knew that the guys were going to come out strong. They kept it close a little bit, but eventually, our offense, like throughout the year, came around.”
As for the repeat championship win, he said, “It feels good. We knew coming into the season that the target’s going to be on our back. We lost the first two games and then went on an 11 win run after that.”
He said in the last game, “Derron Flores came through. We wanted at least one or two innings from him and he gave us six. So that works—makes the job easier.”
After the game, an awards ceremony was held to recognize the teams and individual awardees.
The other individual awardees included the Pirates’ Derek Sasamoto who won the regular season MVP award and the batting/RBI title. He finished the season with a .680 batting average from 17 hits out of 25 at-bats.
The Golden Glove outfielder was Geoff Cruz of the Dodgers, while the Golden Glove infielder was Tomokane.
The Catcher of the Year was the Pirates’ Audi Maratita, and the Pirates’ manager, Jay Kintol was named the Manager of the Year.
Maratita was also the runs scored champion with 19; Derek Aguon and Angel Reyes both had four doubles; Reyes and Cruz hit a homer each; the pitching champion was Peter ‘Dung’ Tenorio of the Pirates; and the strikeout king was Kevin Kapileo with 35.
The Sportsmanship Award went to the Falcons.
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Story by Leigh Gases
Video edited by Thomas Manglona II
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