Aragua Tigers Ties Lara Cardenales

Licey, Cibaenas clinch Caribbean Series berths
The Licey Tigres and Cibaenas Aguilas came out of the Dominican League’s first round round-robin playoff with berths in the league’s final series. More important, both teams will play in next month’s Caribbean Series because the host Dominican Republic will be allowed to send two teams. The off-season demise of the Puerto Rican League created an imbalance of teams in the Caribbean Series, necessitating the addition of a fourth team.
Licey finished the first round of play with an 11-6 record while Cibaenas ended up with a 10-7 mark. Final first round games scheduled for last Thursday night were called off because the championship match-up was already clinched. Henry Mateo of the Oriente Estrellas had the hottest bat in first round play, hitting .400 over 17 games. Nelson Figueroa, who pitched in Taiwan last summer, turned in the best opening round performance among hurlers with a 2-0 record and 0.64 ERA over 14 innings.
The Tigres and Aguilas will open the championship series this week.

Aragua streaks into first-place tie in Venezuelan playoffs
The Venezuelan League’s first round of playoffs headed into its final weekend with the Lara Cardenales and Aragua Tigres tied for first place in the round robin tournament with identical 8-3 records. Aragua, in particular, has been hot with a six-game winning streak propelling the Tigres into their deadlock with Lara.
Speaking of momentum, it would be hard to find a more effective postseason hitter in Caribbean baseball right now than Eliezer Alfonzo of the Oriente Caribes. While Aragua’s Alberto Callaspo leads the playoff batting race with a remarkable .478 average, Alfonzo has made the most of his own .370 mark, drilling seven homers and driving in 15 runs in just 46 at-bats. Felipe Paulino of Margarita has been a ray of light in the Bravos’ 3-8 postseason start with a 1-1 record and a Venezuelan-best 0.82 ERA.
The first round will conclude Monday with the top two teams advancing to the Liga Venezolana finals later in the week.

Mazatlan grabs early lead in Mex Pac semi series with Mochis
Mazatlan has taken a 2-1 lead in their best-of-7 Mexican Pacific League semifinal series with Los Mochis, while the Obregon-Culiacan series is knotted up at two games apiece. After cruising to a four-game sweep over Guasave in the first round, Mazatlan came back from a 3-0 loss to Mochis in their series opener last week to outscore the Caneros by an aggregate 19-3 margin over the next two games to take command in their set. The defending champion Venados have been led offensively by Robert Saucedo’s .458 average and six RBI’s.
Obregon won their first two games over Culiacan before the Tomateros beat the Yaquis in consecutive games to tie their series. Mexican League batting champion Carlos Rivera has swung the big stick this month for Obregon, bashing out a .429 average with two homers in nine games, but as a team, Obregon is hitting .209 in the playoffs. Reds farmhand Justin Lehr has been lights-out, with a 2-0 record and a 0.42 ERA over three starts as the Yaquis have a team ERA of 1.90. Outfielder Luis Suarez leads the Caneros with a .387 average, but has only scored two runs and driven in one more.
The semifinal winners will open the Mex Pac finals later this week.

(Courtesy of World Baseball Today)