CAMAGÜEY.- The Bulls’ offense woke up this Thursday with ten hits to take the 3-2 victory and the particular commitment against the Ciego de Ávila team at the start of the U-23 National Baseball Series.
Noel Montero and Fernando Raymundo stood out with the wood, both 4-2, and Asniel Ugalde 3-3.
Yonimiller Mendoza came to the rescue of starter Luis Mario Macías in the second inning, and worked immaculately for four and two thirds.
The challenge was defined in extra inningswhere Alejandro León returned to dominate, as he had done in the first crashand scored his second victory, which makes him the leader of this department.
Starting this Saturday, the Bulls will try to maintain the winning pace when they host the Gallos de Sancti Spíritus in a two-game sub-series. The current champions come from falling twice against Las Tunas.
The first sub-series closed for Camagüey with two wins in extra innings and one loss by no hit-no run at the Cándido González stadium.
The new manager from Camagüey, Marino Luis, had already stated in an interview published in ahead.cu that the team’s main strength was pitching, and his guys didn’t make him look bad.
In the opening day, left-hander Carlos Pedroso did an excellent pitching job as a starter. Over six full innings he got just three hits, walked one, struck out five and allowed one unearned run.
For his part, reliever Alejandro León easily dominated the Avilanian shootout for two innings and scored the victory.
The Bulls had scored one in the bottom of the third thanks to the speed of Noel Montero, who reached base on an infield hit to shortstop and then stole second base, only to be towed in by Harold Hourrutunier’s cannon shot.
The game, agreed to seven innings, had to be defined in extra innings, where the tiebreaker rule was applied in the eighth episode, something contrary to what had been announced in the tournament regulations, which stipulates the use of this measure from 10th if equality persists in the marker.
An error by Avilanian third baseman Manuel Martínez was enough for Camagüey to leave them on the field with a score of 2-1.
The joy for the triumph in the debut did not last long for Marino, because on Wednesday he had to see how the left-handed Yadier Batista left the bullfighting batch without hits no races for Ciego to take the victory 4-0.
In seven innings, Batista only had two men reach base, by walk and pitch, and managed to strike out four. His opponent Fernando Ramos provided a good duel, keeping the Tigres at bay for five chapters, until they made two in the sixth.