On paper, a pitching matchup of “King” Felix Hernandez versus Seth Lugo might seem to be a bit lopsided. And, turn out lopsided it did... just not in the expected direction. Puerto Rico piled on 11 runs in just seven innings, leading to a mercy rule victory over Venezuela.
Hernandez didn’t make it out of the third inning and walked in a run, giving up two runs total. Former Brave (for a few months, anyway) Jhoulys Chacin gave up five runs, and then Deolis Guerra gave up four more without recording an out, causing the game to end early.
Meanwhile, Seth Lugo, Giovanni Soto, and Joe Jimenez limited Venezuela to just three hits. One of those hits came off the bat of Ender Inciarte in his second plate appearance. Batting in the ninth spot, Inciarte didn’t get another trip to the plate, given the game’s truncation.
Inciarte and Venezuela next face off against Italy, who made a dramatic comeback to top Mexico on Thursday night, where they’ll hope for better results. Meanwhile, the teams of Julio Teheran and Freddie Freeman will face off against one another at noon today in Miami.
