Granma beat Ciego de Avila twice in a row in playoff

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 20 (acn) Granma beat away for the second consecutive day Ciego de Avila in the final playoff of the 56th Cuban National Baseball Series and now leads 2-0 the series.

At José Ramón Cepero Stadium, the squad managed by the experienced coach Carlos Marti won this time 3-2 over the current national monarchs.
Both starting pitchers made a good performance but the win went to Noelvis Entenza who surrendered only one unearned run and three hits, with two strikeouts and same amount of walks in seven innings, and Vladimir Baños took the loss after allowing three runs in six and two thirds innings.
In the eighth, Alfredo Despaigne, Granma´s cleanup hitter, was victim of a superb fielding play by Julio Pablo Martinez who caught the ball clearly over the fence of the centerfield, thus avoiding the fourth homer of the slugger in this postseason.
The local side managed to score twice in the bottom of the eighth, mainly thanks to an error by SS Yordan Manduley.
Closer Miguel Lahera earned his 10th save when allowing one unearned run and two hits in two innings of work.
The third game of this playoff will be on Saturday, now with Granma as home club, and the starting pitchers should be the ace Lazaro Blanco, for the locals, and Dachel Duquesne for the visitors.

Boxscore:

José Ramón Cepero Stadium

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
GRA 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 3 8 1
CAV 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 2 5 0

W: NOELVIS ENTENZA (10-3)
L: VLADIMIR BAÑOS (9-5)
S: MIGUEL LAHERA (10)