2024-04-02 10:12:27
Text: Raul del Pino
Photos: Emmanuel Santos
With their spectacular victory in extra innings against Guantánamo, the Toros de Camagüey completed the first sweep of five games in the current championship, and in the process equaled their best historical streak, achieved in Series 59 when the team then led by Miguel Borroto had eight successes consecutively.
Driven by such an emotional boost, the ninth now under the command of Marino Luis, will move to the Mártires de Barbados in Granma in search of establishing a new absolute record for the province. But ahead they will find the fiercest offensive of the contest, led by Alfredo Despaigne in full form. killer who has already hit seven home runs in 12 games.
“The horse of horses,” as a certain sports narrator called him years ago, is proving to be above the level of a decimated league, where the quality of the pitching is far from what he faced for a decade in Japan. At this rate, he may well dream of breaking his own record of 36 full-round hits from 2012, although now the qualifying phase ends after only 75 challenges and not 90 as in that memorable Series 51.
If he continues with this frequency he would greatly exceed 40 home runs, a figure that some might describe as unthinkable, but if anyone can do it it is the burly 37-year-old slugger who has 467 home runs in his entire career, including those he has hit in Cuba (270 ) with those from his brief time in Mexico (13), and those from the Japanese League (184).
However, the Alazanes de Granma do not depend solely on Despaigne, who in addition to accumulating the best OPS of the series (1,451), also appears at the top of the top drivers, precisely along with his teammate Alexquemer Sánchez, both with 17 .
Likewise, the three-time national champions have among their ranks the stellar cousins Raico and Roel Santos, another formidable hitter like Guillermo Avilés and first baseman Guillermo García. Thanks to everyone’s joint production, the team led by Ángel Ortega exhibits a huge batting average of .350, the best in the championship by far.
But although Granma and Camagüey, both with eight wins and four losses, will star in the most interesting duel of the current week, neither of them commands the standings, a privilege that for now falls to the Tigres Avileños, thanks to their 10 victories. and only two failures.
After defeating the Matanzas Crocodiles four out of five times (5-7), the cats from the center of the island will remain at their José Ramón Cepero headquarters to receive the Sancti Spíritus Gallos (5-7) and try retain the leadership, whose main threat responds to the name of Pinar del Río.
Los Vegueros (9-3) are experiencing a renaissance at the hands of a legend like Alexei Ramírez, another veteran of a thousand battles who, after living his best times in the Major Leagues, returned at the age of 42 to spend his last cartridges in Cuba and has become the spark plug of his squad. Now, the Pativerdes will host the weakened Wasps of Santiago (4-8) in the reissue of one of the great historical confrontations of Cuban baseball.
Another subseries that faces teams from the top of the table will be the one between Industriales (8-4) and Mayabeque (6-6). Guillermo Carmona’s Leones have just won four away games in Cienfuegos (3-9), while Michel González’s Hurricanes fell 2-3 in the “Havana derby” against Artemisa (6-6).
Back to the individual performances, the right-hander José Ramón Rodríguez starred in another pitching gem the day before in Guantánamo in which he went nine innings without conceding runs, at the rate of 10 strikeouts, a figure that allowed him to rise to the top of this statistical locker with 21. Likewise, his teammate Alexander Ayala leads the best hitters with an average of .463.
Meanwhile, Pinero Yadier Garay maintains his state of grace from the box, not only for maintaining his impeccable earned run average in 13.2 innings of performance, but for adding three hits and two saves in his six outings.