The top of the National Baseball Series continued to be tinged with green when the leaders Vegueros de Pinar del Rio defeated the Cocodrilos de Matanzas for the second consecutive day, this time by a 14-3 score.
On Thursday, Alexander Urquiola’s team deployed an attack of 16 hits to knock out the Matanzas team in seven chapters, with Jorge Yoan Rojas having a perfect day with a 4-4 record with one hit and five runs batted in.
Yaser Julio González also excelled for the Pinar del Río team by hitting 4-3 with a double, and former major leaguer Alexei Ramírez and Tailor Sánchez also hit home runs.
Randy Martínez pitched six innings with seven strikeouts without allowing any clean runs and got the win.
The Leñadores de Las Tunas defeated the Tigres de Ciego de Avila 6-4 and moved to within half a game of the Tigres de Ciego de Avila in the standings.
A two-run home run by Yosvani Alarcón in the ninth inning sealed the success of the reigning national champions.
The Alazanes de Granma defeated the Leones de Industriales 7-6 at the Latin American stadium and handed them their seventh consecutive defeat.
Once again, they defined the game in the ninth inning when they scored the final run of the game with Alexquemer Sanchez’s run off a wild pitch.
Alfredo Despaigne hit his 13th home run of the contest to reaffirm his leadership in that department and Juan Danilo Pérez made a four-episode relief with a couple of runs allowed and won the game.
The Avispas of Santiago de Cuba defeated the Leopards of Villa Clara 12-6 to stay in the classification zone, in a game where the villaclareños committed five defensive errors that caused eight dirty runs.
For Santiago Reinier Castillo and Yoelquis Guibert each went 4-2 with a pair of runs batted in.
In other games, Sancti Spíritus beat La Isla 5-2 with Duniesky Barroso’s home run and Yanielquis Duardo’s sixth save (leader) and Mayabeque beat Camagüey 6-3.
Finally, the Guantanamo Indios beat the Artemisa Cazadores twice with scores of 5-3 and 5-1 and Cienfuegos beat Holguin with a 6-4 slate and a home run by Jorge Zuniga.
Pinar continues to lead the tournament with a 21-9 record, escorted by Ciego de Avila (19-11) and Las Tunas (16-9), in the top three positions.
