Cuban baseball: Matanzas to extend winning streak

HAVANA, Cuba, Sep 8 (acn) Matanzas will visit Artemisa today in pursuit of increasing its streak of 13 consecutive wins in the continuation of the Cuban baseball championship in its 56th edition.

Supported in an offensive line-up that has a high batting average of .344, with 19 homers and 146 RBIs, the Matanzas Crocodiles have achieved four sweeps in a row and command the standings of the national baseball classic with near-perfect balance of 22 wins and only two losses.
The squad managed by Victor Mesa has almost secured its qualification to the second phase of the campaign, and could increase its harvest of success when facing the Artemisa Hunters which have negative balance of 10-14, and appear in the lower part of the standings.
Meanwhile, Villa Clara (12-7) will try to reduce the disadvantage of seven and a half games over the leader when clashing away with Industriales (11-12), in the reissue of one of the great classics of Cuban baseball.
Holguin (13-8) will receive Las Tunas (12-11) and Camagüey (14-9) will host Granma (11-12) in two attractive subseries between teams involved in the fight for accessing the elite round of the tournament.
The surprising team of Cienfuegos (12-12) will seek to take advantage of its status as home club when playing against Mayabeque (6-17) to climb positions in the standings, while the current monarch, Ciego de Avila (14-10), will host in its stadium the lagged side of Santiago de Cuba (8-15).
The other two subseries starting today are Isla de la Juventud (9-12) vs. Sancti Spíritus (7-16) and Guantanamo (12-12)-Pinar del Rio (8-12), at the house of those first mentioned.
Here are the standings of the Cuban National Baseball Series:
TEAM W L AVE DIF
MTZ 22 2 917 -
VCL 12 7 632 7.5
HOL 13 8 619 7.5
CMG 14 9 609 7.5
CAV 14 10 583 8.0
LTU 12 11 522 9.5
CFG 12 12 500 10.0
GTM 12 12 500 10.0
GRA 11 12 478 10.5
IND 11 12 478 10.5
IJV 9 12 429 11.5
ART 10 14 417 12.0
PRI 8 12 400 12.0
SCU 8 15 348 13.5
SSP 7 16 304 14.5
MAY 6 17 261 15.5