1/18/23
VENEZUELA
Edwin García sealed brilliant comeback for Magallanes in Valencia
Magallanes overcame a seven-race deficit and added their fourth consecutive victory with an 11-10
By Yelimar Rquena
January 18, 2023
The soul of a champion is never be underestimated. Navegantes del Magallanes came back from a seven-run deficit to beat the Tigres de Aragua 11-10 on Tuesday and thus add their seventh Round Robin victory.
At the José Bernardo Pérez in Valencia, to the sound of “yes we can”, the Turks won their fourth consecutive victory and tied Tiburones de la Guaira for second place with a 7-6 record. They are only one game behind the leader Leones del Caracas.
For the second night in a row, Edwin García capped off the Navagantes come back, this time with a single to left field that brought home Rayder Ascanio's with the winning run. It was the eighth run that the Navegantes scored between the eighth and ninth innings.
"Each game for us is a final... We are not going to give up, we are going to keep fighting," said Edwin García at the end of the game.
Tigers ambush
In the midst of the intense rivalry that exists between Tigres and Magallanes, and with everything that is at stake right now, this Tuesday's game was heart-stopping.
The Tigers went ahead convincingly with a five-run run in the fourth inning, combining hits from Carlos Duran, Henry Rodríguez and Alexi Amarista. Three of those runs were off the starter Felix Doubront and the other two foff of Ángel Acevedo.
The Tigers added one more in the top of the fifth on a double by Johan López. And for the first two thirds of the game, Magallanes could only score two runs, both driven in by Alberth Martínez.
Runs left and right
Aragua took advantage of the blunders the Magallanes relief pitchers and scored another four runs between the seventh and eighth innngs to take the lead 10-3.
Aragua took advantage of the blunders of the electric relay and made another four lines between the seventh and eighth stages to take the lead 10-3.
impressive comeback
Despite the huge difference, a good part of the fans stayed in the stadium cheering on the defending champion. And it worked.
A double from the inspired Alberth Martínez batted in the first of six runs that put the game difference at one (10-9). Rayder Ascanio, Edwin García, Rainel Rosario and David Rodríguez were all part of that rally, all with singles.
After Anthony Vizcaya shut out the Tigers in the ninth, Magallanes did what seemed impossible.
Alberth Martínez reached base again and after two outs, with a drive that hit the wall and became a triple. Edwin García sealed the comeback.
The entire team jumped onto the field to celebrate, while they were cheered on by their fans.
Leones 8-5, Tiburones 7-6, Navegantes 7-6, Tigres 6-7, Cardenales 4-8
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Leones made the house respect and retakes first place
In a perfect 4-4 night, Ali Castillo was the spark plug of the capital's offense
By Yelimar Requena
January 17, 2023
With timely hitting and capitalizing on the flickering of rival pitching, Leones del Caracas defeated Tiburones de La Guaira 7-3 on Tuesday to retake first place and take advantage in their desire to advance to the final.
In the UCV park, before more than 15,000 fans, the Lions added their eighth Round Robin victory and took a game advantage over the Sharks, now with 7-6.
forceful comeback
The Sharks went ahead with a run in the first inning. And, before the response of Leones -who tied the game in that same episode-, they returned to take advantage in the third inning on a solo home run by Franklin Barreto.
However, the Lions found the fall of the starter Ricardo Pinto and took off on the scoreboard.
With a fly ball by Jhonny Pereda and a deflected pitch by the pitcher, Caracas went up 3-2 in the fourth inning. The following inning Oswaldo Arcia, Harold Castro and Niko Vásquez combined to drive in another four runs and put the game on the ice 7-2.
Sharks could barely react with a run in the eighth after a double by Wilson Garcia. And, of course, that was not enough to stop the Lions.
Ali Castillo had a perfect 4-4 night with a walk and two runs scored to raise his average to .418. Oswaldo Arcia and Niko Vásquez, for their part, stood out with two RBIs each.
The victory went to Jhoulys Chacín (2-1) who excelled with 6.0 innings of just two runs, in which he did not issue any walks and struck out four to improve his ERA to 4.50. For his part, after a relief of an inning and a third with a run, José Mujica scored the save.
The setback went to Ricardo Pinto (0-2), who ended up allowing six runs in four and two-thirds innings.
More ON Ali Castillo
Ali Castillo is a replacement player plucked from the The Zulia Aguilas team after they were eliminated from the tournament.
It should be noted that it was not enough for Alí Castillo to just be the bat leader, leader during the regular season phase but he leads the current Round Robin in hits (23), runs scored (16), and also has the second most number of doubles (5) and is third in OBP (.468).
Now, in his last four games in the Caracas Leones uniform, the native of Maracaibo is averaging .563 (9-for-16) with a double, six runs scored and an OPS of 1.236, undoubtedly being an extremely valuable addition to the Lions offense on this stretch of the round robin finale.
In the same way, his performance in this postseason has not only shown offensively, but also defensively, since on Tuesday he starred in two very good plays at second base, which most likely prevented runs against for his team.
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