Cuban baseball defending champion wins first game in playoff

CIEGO DE AVILA, Cuba, Apr 7 (acn) The reigning monarch Ciego de Avila beat 9-4 Pinar del Rio in the first game of the final play off of the Cuban baseball championship in its 55th edition, in match held at José Ramón Cepero stadium, in this city.

Vladimir Garcia was the winner when allowing seven hits and four unearned runs in seven innings, with four strikeouts and three walks, while Wilber Perez allowed three earned runs in just a third of an inning and took the loss.
Yeniet Perez led the offensive of the national champions with a double and three RBIs, supported by veteran Ariel Borrero with two RBIs, while Jose Adolis Garcia hit 2 for 3 with three runs scored.
Ciego de Avila took the lead with three runs in the first inning, when combining four walks, one hit and a wild pitch, thanks to the lack of control of Pinar del Rio´s starting pitcher Wilber Perez and fateful relieves of Yoandy Cruz and Yaifredo Dominguez.
The local side added three more runs in the second, two of them driven in by veteran DH Borrero and the third one through sacrifice fly by third baseman Yeniet Perez off reliever Dominguez.
Vladimir Garcia worked with ease during the first third of the game, but in the fourth inning he allowed four unearned runs, three of them by costly error by left fielder Guillermo Aviles with the bases loaded over an easy fly hit by Andy Sarduy, who then scored driven in by Michael Gonzalez's hit.
But Ciego de Avila retook distance in the bottom of that same inning when scoring another run thanks to a double by Yeniet Perez.
The current monarchs managed to score twice in the seventh inning, runs driven in by catcher Osvaldo Vasquez and second baseman Raul Gonzalez, while relievers Alberto Bicet and Yunnier Cano faced no complications in the 8th and 9th innings and thus the Tigers reached the first win of the final play off of Cuban baseball.
Both teams will face each other again today in the same ballpark where the right-hander Lazaro Blanco will be the starter for the local squad and Pinar del Río will send to the mound the experienced Vladimir Baños to try to tie the series.