SN65 Zone Roundup #2: Pinar del Río Pull Clear in the West, Six Teams Within Two Games in the East

Four subseries into the 65th Serie Nacional, the two zones are telling different stories. In the west, Pinar del Río are 12–4, the best record in the league, and two games clear of Matanzas, even after Industriales came to the Estadio Capitán San Luis and won twice in one afternoon. In the east, nobody can pull away: Santiago de Cuba are back on top at 10–6, but six teams sit within two games of them, and seven of the eight eastern subseries played since our last roundup ended level.

This is the second of our fortnightly SN65 Zone Roundups, covering the third subseries (14–17 October) and the fourth (19–22 October). Most teams have now played 16 of their 44 qualifying games. There are no games on Friday 23 October, and the fifth subseries starts on Saturday. The groups and the playoff path are in our SN65 format guide, every subseries to 29 November is in the full SN65 schedule, and the first two subseries are in Zone Roundup #1.

Standings after the fourth subseries

Occidental zone (Groups A and B)

Oriental zone (Groups C and D)

The third and fourth subseries, result by result

Zona Occidental

Group A. Pinar del Río won three of four at Artemisa in the third subseries and came home to the Capitán San Luis for the derby with Industriales. Alfonso Urquiola’s Vegueros took the first game 5–2, answering an eighth-inning Industriales home run with a rally of their own. On Wednesday 21 October Guillermo Carmona’s Industriales won both games of a doubleheader on pitching: 2–1 behind Andy Vargas, who allowed one run in 5⅔ innings, and 4–2, with all four runs in the sixth inning and Carlos Manuel Cuesta pitching seven (JIT). Pinar closed the series on Thursday with a 7–5 win, and Frank Abel Álvarez earned his fourth save (JIT, beisbolencuba). The split leaves Pinar 12–4 and Industriales 7–7, still short of two games at Isla de la Juventud that were not completed in the third subseries. Artemisa (8–8) went to the Cristóbal Labra and took three of four from Isla de la Juventud, who are 3–11 and eight games out.

Group B. Matanzas had their worst week of the defence of their title and then their best. At Villa Clara in the third subseries the champions lost three of four, the heaviest 13–2 on 16 October in a doubleheader game scheduled for seven innings, in which Omar Caruncho had three hits for Villa Clara (JIT, beisbolencuba). At Cienfuegos they turned it round, winning three of four, including a Wednesday doubleheader 6–3 and 9–1 in which Cuba catcher Andrys Pérez homered in each game (JIT), and an 11–1 win on Thursday. Villa Clara, 2–6 after two subseries, are 7–8 now: they swept Mayabeque in Wednesday’s doubleheader at the Augusto César Sandino, the second game 6–0, before losing 2–0 on Thursday. Mayabeque (6–7) have played the fewest games in the league, 13, and Cienfuegos (6–8) have lost five of their last six.

Zona Oriental

Group D. The lead changed hands twice in a week. Granma split at Santiago in the third subseries, a series in which the two sides hit eight home runs at the Guillermón Moncada in one game, a 14–10 Granma win on 16 October with leadoff man Roel Santos 4-for-5 (JIT). Granma then won the first two at home against Holguín, 10–1 and 8–3, and after Tuesday 20 October JIT had them alone at the top of the zone. That same night Santiago lost a second straight game at Guantánamo: the Avispas led 8–5 after Jeison Martínez’s three-run home run in the eighth, and Guantánamo answered with a five-run rally, helped by three Santiago errors, to win 10–8 (JIT). Then it turned. Santiago won 12–6 on Wednesday, with five home runs, two of them from Eduardo García, one with the bases loaded (JIT), and 9–6 in 11 innings on Thursday (JIT). Holguín beat Granma 6–5 and 7–5 at the Mártires de Barbados, the second with five runs in the eighth, and Yulieski Remón and Alexquemer Sánchez homered for Granma in the ninth in vain (JIT, beisbolencuba). Santiago (10–6) are back in front, Granma (9–7) a game behind, Holguín 8–8, and Guantánamo, 5–11, have won four of their last eight.

Group C. Both Group C subseries in the third round were split. The one that did not finish level in the fourth was Las Tunas at Ciego de Ávila: Ciego won the first game 7–2, and Las Tunas won the next three, 6–5, 16–3 and 12–4. Kenier Ferráz pitched four innings of relief for the win in the 6–5 game (JIT), and Las Tunas’ Henry Quintero leads the league with 28 hits, according to beisbolencuba’s statistics. Sancti Spíritus split at Camagüey, where Riquelme Odelin threw a complete-game three-hitter in a seven-inning 8–0 win for Camagüey on 20 October before the Gallos won the second game of the doubleheader behind José Isaías Grandales’s long relief (JIT), and Sancti Spíritus took Thursday’s game 2–1. That leaves Sancti Spíritus and Las Tunas level at 9–7, Ciego de Ávila 8–8 and Camagüey 6–10.

Player of the fortnight: Naykel Cruz, Matanzas

Matanzas’s left-hander has done every job on the staff. He opened the season as the closer, with four saves after two subseries, the most in the league at the time, according to beisbolencuba’s statistics. On Thursday at the Estadio Municipal de Abreus he started against Cienfuegos and won, with six innings and ten strikeouts (JIT, beisbolencuba). JIT adds five walks, and beisbolencuba two hits, one earned run and his second win of the season. Its leader tables now have Naykel Cruz (also written Naikel) first in the league in strikeouts with 27 and fourth in earned-run average at 1.89. beisbolencuba also says he has had a hand in six of Matanzas’s ten wins, a figure we have not been able to check.

The other names on the leader boards, all from beisbolencuba’s statistics: Yoelkis Guibert, our first player of the fortnight, now has 10 home runs (JIT also reports his tenth), 26 runs batted in, 25 runs scored and a 1.019 slugging percentage. Mayabeque’s Dennis Laza leads the batting race at .538. Industriales’ Raymond Figueredo leads the league in earned-run average at 0.69. Second in batting, at .450, is Sancti Spíritus’s Frederich Cepeda, who hit his 400th Serie Nacional home run on 17 October.

Our reading: the east has no favourite, and the west’s fourth place is a five-team race

This is our analysis, not a federation figure. Only the top four teams in each zone reach the playoffs. In the east, seven of the eight subseries in the last two rounds were split, and Las Tunas’s 3–1 at Ciego de Ávila was the only exception. The result is a zone in which first and sixth are two games apart with 28 games left for everyone. Nobody has separated in either group, so the zone stage from 3 November, when each Group C team plays five games against each Group D team, will probably decide more than the group stage has.

The west is the opposite shape. Pinar del Río and Matanzas have a gap on the field: two games or more over third place for Matanzas, four for Pinar. Behind them, Industriales and Artemisa are level at .500, with Villa Clara and Mayabeque half a game back and Cienfuegos one. Five games are still to be made up, and all five involve those chasing teams or Isla de la Juventud: two between Industriales and Isla, two between Cienfuegos and Mayabeque, and one between Mayabeque and Villa Clara. Mayabeque, with three games in hand, could move from sixth to fourth on their make-up games alone.

What to watch next

Fifth subseries, Saturday 24 to Tuesday 27 October: Artemisa at Pinar del Río, Isla de la Juventud at Industriales, Villa Clara at Matanzas, Mayabeque at Cienfuegos, Sancti Spíritus at Ciego de Ávila, Camagüey at Las Tunas, Guantánamo at Holguín and Santiago de Cuba at Granma. Santiago at Granma is the top two in Group D, a game apart, and Mayabeque at Cienfuegos is a meeting of two teams still owed games against each other. beisbolencuba lists 2:00 PM starts for Saturday.

Sixth subseries, 29 October to 1 November, closes the group stage: Industriales at Artemisa, Pinar del Río at Isla de la Juventud, Matanzas at Mayabeque, Cienfuegos at Villa Clara, Las Tunas at Sancti Spíritus, Ciego de Ávila at Camagüey, Holguín at Santiago de Cuba and Granma at Guantánamo. Our next roundup follows it. Rosters for all 16 teams are on our SN65 rosters tracker.

Sources

Standings, the game-by-game calendar and individual statistics: beisbolencuba, read on 23 October 2026, and its report of 22 October. Results cross-checked against JIT’s daily reports of 16 October (“Tembló en la zona oriental de la pelota cubana”), 21 October (“Arde el este de la 65 Serie Nacional” and “Leones mordieron dos veces a Vegueros en la 65 Serie Nacional”) and 22 October (“Vegueros y Avispas, líderes de la 65 Serie Nacional”). Where the two sources differ we have left the figure out: JIT gives Villa Clara’s first doubleheader win over Mayabeque on 21 October as 8–1 and beisbolencuba as 6–1. Calendar and home teams: the official calendar, as set out in our SN65 schedule. Individual statistics are beisbolencuba’s and have not been checked against a second statistical source, so they are attributed in the text.

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