Matanzas wins 18 games in a row in Cuban baseball

HAVANA, Cuba, Sep 14 (acn) Matanzas continues unstoppable on the 56th edition of the Cuban baseball championship when extending to 18 its chain of consecutive wins with the 7-2 victory over Industriales.

Left-hander Yoanni Yera allowed 11 hits and two earned runs with seven strikeouts in eight innings to reach his fifth win of the season, while David Mena suffered his third defeat by allowing four runs in just two innings and a third.
Yordanis Samon homered and drove in two runs as the highlight on the offensive by the Matanzas Crocodiles, who lead the national baseball classic with almost perfect balance of 27 wins and only two losses, seven and a half games ahead of the deputy leader Holguin (18-8).
The latter, also involved in a great campaign, defeated Camagüey 3-2, with solid winning relief of Carlos Alberto Leon and excellent batting performance by outfielder Geydi Soler, author of two RBIs in the game.
Villa Clara took advantage of Camagüey´s loss to climb to fourth seat of the standings when beating 6-4 Guantanamo, with the fourth victory for the undefeated lefty Robelio Carrillo and offensive highlight by third baseman Yeniet Perez, who hit a homer and drove in two runs.
In other matches of the day, Cienfuegos defeated 4-3 Granma, while, in a two-game program, Las Tunas first won 9-2 over Artemisa but they lost 2-5 the second game.
Sancti Spiritus was leading 4-1 in Santiago de Cuba when the game was stopped in the fifth inning due to rain, and the matches Mayabeque-Pinar del Rio and Ciego de Avila-Isla de la Juventud were suspended by the same cause.
After these results, Matanzas (27-2) commands the standings of Cuban baseball, followed by Holguin (18-8), Ciego de Avila (17-11), Villa Clara (14-10), Camagüey (16-12), Guantanamo (15-14), Granma (14-14), Isla de la Juventud (12-13), Las Tunas (13-15), Industriales (13-15), Cienfuegos (13-16), Pinar del Rio (9-14), Artemisa (11-18), Santiago de Cuba (10-17), Mayabeque (8-18) and Sancti Spiritus (7-20).