Isaías Tejeda and Melky Cabrera took the ball out of the park and were the main protagonists of a quartet of players who distributed the nine hits that Águilas Cibaeñas tied last night, to prevail over Leones del Escogido 7-3, in a match played on Friday night at Cibao Stadium.
With the victory, the Eagles return to second place, after reaching third place before the start of the match, which marked the debut of “Tsunami”, Carlos Martínez.
Tejeda led the Eagles offensive with a home, double and single; Cabrera home run and one from the base, Ramón Torres double and single and Rangel Ravelo two shots.
Seven pitchers for the yellows extracted 14 shots from the red bats to limit them to just four touchdowns.
For the Lions, Aderlín Rodríguez hit a home run and single, Franchy Cordero doubled and hit, Brett Sullivan and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. two from a base to lead his team.
The result left the winning eagles with a 14-12 record that puts them in second place. The losers were 14-14 and fell to fourth place in the standings.
Luis Felipe Castillo (1-0) was left with the victory, the defeat for Miguel Martínez (0-1), and the saved game was credited by Neftalí Feliz (7).
The debut of “Tsunami”
The match marked the debut of pitcher Carlos Martínez (El Tsunami), who came out undecided, with 3.1 innings, faced 16 strokes, allowed seven shots, two runs, one won, did not give a walk and hit four .
After Martínez, Darío Álvarez (4), Luis Felipe Castillo (5), Juan Nicasio (6), Gregory Soto (7), Michael Ynoa (8) and Neftalí Feliz (9) climbed the mound.
For Ales, left-hander Miguel Martínez started, who was only 2.2 innings left, faced 12 rivals, allowed four shots, four runs won, did not go and ventilated two.
After Martínez, they took over Samuel Adames (3), Edward Paredes (4), Tai Tiedeman (5), Andrés Núñez (5), Rhiner Cruz (6), Fernando Rodney (7) and Anderson Severino (8).
races
The Eagles made two runs in the first on solo homers by Melky Cabrera and Isaías Tejeda.
The Scarlets discounted Estevan Florial one by one in the third, Iván Castillo got the wrong base to put the runners in corners and Franchy Cordero drove in Florial with a cannonball.
At the end of the third, the Eagles attacked again with an unstoppable Ramón Torres and, after two outs, a single by Rangel Ravelo and a double RBI by Isaías Tejeda.
The fourth looked great for the Lions when Joe Dunand and Brett Sullivan hit running singles and Aderlin Rodriguez hit the ball in midfield. But Dunand misread the shot and was put on the plate. Sullivan, who advanced to third place, scored on the sacrifice of Estevan Florial.
In the fifth came the fifth of the yellows from singles by Rangel Ravelo and Isaías Tejeda, hit by Johan Camargo and shot by Robel García.
In the sixth for the Reds, Aderlin Rodríguez hit a long run on the left field against Nicasio for the third outside the visitors.
The Harriers took off again from three with one in the sixth through Ramón Torres’ double and an RBI single by Melky Cabrera.
In the seventh, Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. and Gregory Polanco had the first shots of the game after a single outing, scoring one on a field shot in the field.
Without stopping unstoppably, the Eagles made another one in eight, when Robel García negotiated four fouls and stole the middle, advanced to third place with Jon Kemmer’s field and scored with a sacrifice hit on the left wall of Francisco Peña .
The eagles and lions will meet again on Saturday in the Quisqueya Juan Marichal stadium, where it will be the last confrontation between them in the regular round.