Protagonists of a historic rivalry that was born in the first National Series, both teams will face each other in a battle of difficult prediction in the best of seven games starting at the eastern Guillermón Moncada stadium.
The Avispas from Santiago finished in fourth place in the regular season with 42 victories, just one more than their capital rivals, and they beat them in three of the five games in their bilateral match.
In offense and defense, the numbers that these teams left in the campaign are very similar, but the Lions of the capital surpass them in pitching with an average of earned runs allowed per game of 4.68 compared to their opponents’ 5.06.
The feline troop led by Guillermo Carmona concluded with a batting average of .285 and 46 home runs, with individual highlight for the masked Oscar Valdés, who averaged .336, hit 11 home runs and drove in 57 runs.
Eddy Cajigal’s indomitable team hit .289 but with 63 home runs and had the push of Eduardo García (16 home runs and 70 RBIs) and their star Yoelquis Guibert (15 with 68), who will not be in the postseason when he signs a contract. in the Venezuelan league.
The return to the country for the last matches of the qualifying stage of Adriel Labrada, a player who compiled a 47-20 record, will partially compensate for that absence in a team that depends on its offense to achieve victories.
From the pitching mound each squad has its own thing. The Westerners boast of Andy Vargas who finished the tournament fourth in ERA (2.81 pcl) and in Whip (1.27) and those from the East relied on the veteran Danny Betancourt, second in those sections with 2.60 and 1.22, respectively.
Although these teams have never met in the quarterfinals in the postseason, they have done so on 32 occasions with 17 wins for Industriales, which despite being the top winner of titles in the National Series with 12, has lost to Santiago de Cuba in two of the three finals they have played.
The duel is also colored by the victory of the Havana team in the semifinals of the last contest, so the Santiago team will go out in search of revenge.
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