Havana, June 15 (PL) --The Gallos de Sancti Spíritus won this Friday 8-7 and maintained their dominance of eighth place in the standings, the last place that grants tickets to the postseason of the Cuban baseball tournament.
The victory was achieved with a strikeout from the savior Yankiel Mauris, who reached ten saves, when the Holguín team had a tie and an advantage in circulation.
Alexis Varona and Carlos Gómez drove in three runs each for the Sancti Spiritus, while José Eduardo Santos walked two thirds of the game and signed the victory.
One of their closest pursuers, Villa Clara, remained one game behind after defeating Cienfuegos (9-2) led by Yuri Fernández's Grand Slam and José Carlos Quesada's quality opening.
Mayabeque maintained its qualifying hopes by defeating Ciego de Ávila by super KO (15-0) in five innings, the eighth success for Albert Valladares, who shares the lead in games won with three other pitchers.
Yoasán Guillén, Dennis Laza, Yasniel González and Lázaro Ponce hit home runs for the Hurricanes, and between the four of them they drove 13 runs.
Matanzas cleared up doubts about its virtual inclusion in the postseason with a 8-4 victory over Camagüey and Granma achieved its first victory over Pinar del Río (7-3) with three home runs, two by Hubert Sánchez and the 19th by Alfredo Despaigne, who returned alone the leadership of that ranking in the championship.
The rains prevented the conclusion of the duel between Santiago de Cuba and Industriales, sealed with a two-run tie in the ninth inning, a game where Yoelquis Guibert became the second 15-15 hitter of the season, although the statistics are made official at the end of the game .
Guibert, who hit three home runs in the previous game, stole a couple of bases this Friday and has 15 stolen bases and 15 total hits. He had previously signed a similar performance by José Amaury Noroña from Matanzas.
For the same meteorological reason, the Guantánamo-La Isla and Las Tunas-Artemisa matches were suspended.
Pinar del Río maintains the lead in the standings with a balance of 46-24, followed by Las Tunas (40-22), Granma (44-26), Santiago de Cuba (41-29), Industriales (38-32) , Ciego de Ávila and Matanzas (38-33) and Sancti Spíritus (35-35).
Then there are Guantánamo (34-35), Villa Clara (35-36), Mayabeque (34-37), Artemisa (32-35), Camagüey (31-40), Holguín (25-46), Cienfuegos (24- 47) and The Island (19-45).
