AGUILAS 7, GIGANTES 3 AT GIGANTES

Batting stars:  Jose Siri was 3-for-5 with two runs.  Ronald Guzman was 3-for-5.  Wilin Rosario was 1-for-2 with a home run.

Pitching stars:  Oddy Nunez pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits.  Marcos Molina pitched 1.1 scoreless innings, giving up a hit and a walk.  Jose Valdez pitched a scoreless inning despite giving up two hits and a walk.  He struck out one.  Fernando Romero struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk.

Opposition stars:  Rangel Ravelo was 3-for-5 with two doubles.  John Nogowski was 3-for-5 with two RBIs.  Wilmer Difo was 3-for-5 with a triple.  Melky Cabrera was 2-for-5 with a double.  Juan Lagares was 2-for-6.

The game:  The Gigantes scored in the first inning on two singles and a ground out.  Aguilas tied it in the third when Difo tripled and scored on a sacrifice fly.  They went into the lead to stay with a four-run fourth.  Ravelo singled, Cabrera doubled, and Nogowski drove them both in with a single.  Francisco Pena singled to score Nogowski, a Difo single and a hit batsman loaded the bases, and Johan Camargo walked to force in a run.  It was 5-1 Aguilas through four.

Rosario homered in the fifth to cut it to 5-2.  Later in the inning, Siri singled, went to third on Guzman's single, and scored on a double steal of second and home to make it 5-3.  But Aguilas got the two runs back in the sixth when Victor Robles homered, Camargo singled, and Raelo had an RBI double.

It was 7-3 after six, and it was 7-3 after nine.  The Gigantes loaded the bases with one out in the seventh, but a strikeout and a fly out ended the inning.  They did not threaten to get back into the game again.

WP:  Wendolyn Bautista (1-1).  LP:  Dustin Crenshaw (0-2).  S:  None.

Notes:  Siri is batting .349.  Guzman is batting .340.  Kelvin Gutierrez was 1-for-4 and is batting .333.  Luis Marte was 0-for-1 and is batting .308.

Dustin Crenshaw started and pitched 3.1 innings, allowing five runs on nine hits and no walks and striking out one.  Joe Van Meter started for Aguilas and pitched 4.2 innings, giving up three runs on six hits and one walk and striking out seven.

Jesus Reyes, Nunez, Jose A. Valdez, and Romero all have ERAs of zero.

There were 28 hits in the game, 17 by Aguilas.  The teams combined to strand 21, 13 of them by Aguilas.

Record:  The Gigantes are 6-5, in third place, a half-game behind first place Este.

Next game:  The Gigantes host Licey for a doubleheader today.