MAZATLAN 6, MONTERREY 3 IN MONTERREY

Batting stars:  Ricardo Valenzuela was 3-for-4 with a double and two RBIs.  Isaac Paredes was 3-for-5.  Ricky Alvarez was 2-for-3.

Pitching stars:  Francisco Rios pitched six innings, giving up three runs (two earned) on seven hits and a walk and striking out one.  Marco Antonio Rivas pitched a perfect inning.  Roberto Espinosa pitched a perfect inning and struck out one.  Jesus Pirela pitched a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Jose Aguilar was 2-for-4.  Ricardo Serrano was 2-for-4.

The game:  Monterrey scored all three of their runs in the first inning.  Mazatlan scored two in the fourth, tied it on a single and two errors in the fifth, and took the lead with two in the sixth.  Edson Garcia hit an RBI triple to bring home the go-ahead run and scored on a sacrifice fly to provide an insurance run.  Mazatlan added one more in the eighth.

WP:  Rios (5-2).  LP:  Jesse Estrada (0-4).  S:  Pirela (9).

Notes:  Paredes is batting .365.  Rivas has an ERA of 1.69.  Espinosa has an ERA of 1.88.  Pirela has an ERA of 1.08.

Monterrey used eight pitchers, five of them for less than an inning.

Record:  Mazatlan is 20-21, in seventh place, seven games behind Obregon.  They are one game behind sixth-place Culiacan.

Next game:  Mazatlan is again at Monterrey late this afternoon.