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Yulieski Erupts Again for Roosters
It wasn't as loud as his two homerun, nine RBI game in early December, but Yulieski Gourriel banged two homeruns and drove in seven in the Sancti Spiritus Roosters 11-10 win over Guantanamo, outdueling an equally proficient Yoenni Southeran. That is four homeruns and 16 RBIs in two games. For 24 games Yulieski is hitting .326 with 8 homeruns and 33 RBIs. The closest one to him in the RBI race is now Alexander Malleta of the Industriales with 25. He is tied with Hector Olivera of Santiago in the homerun race.
Despite his heroics Yulieski did not drive in what proved to be the game winner and was saved by his teammate from being a goat. But at least he got them to the extra innings. In the third inning Gourriel's 2-run single pulled the Roosters to within 4-2. He had a sacrifice fly in the fifth to make the score 6-3. A solo homerun in the seventh tied the game at 6-6 and then in the eighth after Yoenni Southeran had launched a 3-run homer to give the Indians a 9-6 lead Gourriel countered that blast in the bottom of the eighth with his own 3-run shot.
Southeran appeared to have the upper hand again when in the top of the tenth inning he drove in a run with a single. For Yoenni it was his fifth RBI of the game. Yulieski could have been the ultimate hero, coming up with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the tenth, trailing 10-9 but Dalier Hinojosa struck him out. That made it two outs, but since Yulieski was bailing out the Roosters for most of the day, catcher Yenier Bello bailed out Yulieski with a 2-run single to give the Roosters the 11-10 victory.
Yulieski was not the only player who had a good game yesterday. Rusney Castillo also launched two homeruns and drove in seven runs to give the Ciego de Avila Tigers a 13-6 thrashing of the Granma Stallions. Castillo blasted a 3-run homerun in the third, a solo shot in the fifth and finished off the RBI production with RBI singles in the sixth and eighth and a sacrifice fly in the ninth. He finished off the day with four hits and is now hitting .299 with seven homeruns and 20 RBIs. The Granma Stallions have now lost eight games in a row, dropping them to near the basement in the Western Division. Ciego has moved into a tie for third.
On the pitching front, no one expected a lot from Wilbur Perez coming into his game against the Metropolitanos Warriors. He came into the game with an 0-4 record and a 9.45 ERA. When the game was done Perez had led his team, the Isla de la Juventud Pine Cutters, who had the highest ERA in the Cuban League at 7.56 to a 1-0 win. He gave up four hits, walked one and struck out 11. It was only the Metropolitanos, who are traditionally the worst team in Cuba, but perhaps it will give Wilbur some confidence moving forward. It was also only the fourth win in 21 games for the Pine Cutters.
Last year Duniel Ibarra of the Cienfuegos Elephants broke the Cuban save record with 27 in one season. He picked up his ninth save yesterday, going two plus innings in the Elephants 2-1 win over the Pinar del Rio Tobacco Growers. Duniel gave up one hit, walked one and struck out four. He is not an intimidating closer, only standing 5′7″, but he gets the job done. Back in the 2000/2001 season, when he was just 20 years old Duiniel broke the record for most appearances by a pitcher with 45. That record has since been broken
Matanzas Crocodiles
Cienfuegos Elephants
Sancti Spiritus Roosters
Industriales Leones
Pinar del Rio Tobacco Growers
Artemisa Hunters
Metropolitanos Warriors
Mayabeque Hurricanes
Isla de la Juventud Pine Cutters
Villa Clara Orangemen
Holquin Dogs
Santiago de Cuba Wasps
Ciego de Avila Tigers
Las Tunas Woodcutters
Guantanamo Indians
Granma Stallions
Camaguey Potters
For those who want to follow the Cuban League there are a number of good sites listed below. Unfortunately, they are all in Spanish but you can always visit this site and myworld will continue to provide updates. The more you comment, the more we will update.
http://www.beisbolcubano.cu/basic/default.asp
http://www.beisbolencuba.com/
http://www.baseballdecuba.com/newsite/index.html
This entry was posted on Friday, December 30th, 2011 at 12:51 pm	and is filed under Cuba. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.