MAZATLAN 3, HERMOSILLO 0 IN MAZATLAN

Batting star:  Maxwell Leon was 2-for-3 with a home run and two RBIs.

Pitching stars:  Matt Gage struck out six in six shutout innings, giving up one hit and one walk.  Roberto Espinosa pitched a perfect inning.  Jesus Pirela pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Jorge Castillo pitched 4.2 innings, giving up two runs on three hits and four walks and striking out none.  Alan Rangel pitched two perfect innings.

The game:  It was scoreless until the third.  Ricardo Valenzuela doubled and Jose Augusto Figueroa drew a one-out walk.  Leon singled home a run and Isaac Paredes doubled home another, making it 2-0 Mazatlan.  It stayed 2-0 until the eighth, when Leon homered.

That's pretty much it.  Hermosillo did not get a baserunner until the fourth, when a leadoff single and a one-out walk put men on first and second.  They also put men on first and second with one out in the seventh.

WP:  Gage (1-0).  LP:  Castillo (1-2).  S:  Pirela (5).

Notes:  Paredes was 1-for-4 and is batting .405.  Figueroa was 0-for-2 and is batting .373.  Carlos Munoz was 0-for-4 and is batting .327.  Anthony Giansanti was 0-for-1 and is batting .310.  Giansanti came out of the game after being hit by a pitch in the sixth inning.

Marco Antonio Rivas struck out the only man he faced and has an ERA of 2.70.  Espinosa's ERA is 2.25.  Pirela's ERA is 0.93.

Despite the fact that it was a 3-0 game and there were only eight hits, the game took 3 hours and 6 minutes to play.

Record:  Mazatlan is 13-14, in seventh place, eight games behind the Yaquis de Obregon.  They are a half game behind sixth-place Jalisco.

Next game:  Mazatlan again hosts Hermosillo tonight.