Eduardo Miranda
The Daily Independent
Cerro Coso baseball opened the season with a series sweep over Rio Hondo: an 11-9 10th inning win on the road and a 20-4 home win. With a two-game winning streak the Coyotes welcomed Porterville to Coso Field looking to win a third straight game to start off the season.
After three scoreless innings to start the game, the Coyotes were able to build a 3-0 lead in the fourth inning and hold off the Pirates to secure a 7-3 home win and a third straight game before going on a two-game road series against Southwestern. Coyotes skipper Justus Scott spoke on his team winning its third straight game.
"It's always nice to start the year like that. I like this win a lot more than the other two just because of the type of game it was. It didn't come easily for us offensively, but we scrapped and got some big hits. We kind of persevered offensively and did enough especially in the late innings, scoring two in the sixth and two in the eighth. More importantly, our starting pitcher's first college win, (Rafael) Echeverria. He was tremendous. He got himself into a couple of tough situations and kind of bared down and competed and got us out. The bullpen bent a little bit but they didn't break," he said.
Echeverria started for the Coyotes, throwing 5.1 innings. He gave up two earned runs on four hits, four walks and six strikeouts. Shifu Hasegawa came out of the bullpen and threw 2.2 innings. He gave up one run on five hits and had one strikeout. Ian Rasmussen closed the game throwing the final inning, giving up two hits and no runs with a walk.
In the season opener, the bullpen struggled to close out the ninth inning, giving up seven runs to allow Rio Hondo to tie the game and force extra innings. But against the Pirates, the bullpen came out and was able to take care of business and avoid letting the visitors get back into the game. Scott spoke on his bullpen's bounceback after the extra-inning win over Rio Hondo.
"That was a tough one for the first game, and even the last game with what (Jacob) Rice did in the home game against Rio. Things get sticky into a young player's head as team too, so it was a great job by Rice yesterday coming out of the bullpen and going three and a third scoreless. What we did today it gives those guys confidence in the bullpen. This game is a huge confidence factor," he said.
The Coyotes' starting pitcher and bullpen had a great game against Porterville, but they did not win the game alone on the mound. The hurlers received plenty of defensive support from the infield. Julian Minor at third, David Encarnacion at second, and Deri Steiert-Couture at shortstop all made defensive plays to get outs on ground balls and make catches on popped balls. Christian Wilkes at first made plays for popped balls close to the Porterville dugout. In the third, the Coyotes caught the Pirate runner in a game of pickle between second and third for the final out of the inning. The Coyotes closed the game with a double play, getting the runners out at second and third.
Scott said on his team's defensive play, "we are playing good defensive baseball in all three so far, and that's the key to our baseball team this year. We told these guys from day one that it's going to be a huge thing if we play defense with the lack of maybe the three-run homer in more years, and who knows, that may start coming. It is certainly something. We have strike throwers on the mound, and it's certain we have to play behind them."
With the pitchers and defense playing well, the Coyotes offense struggled in the beginning being unable to score. But the team was able to get hits against the Pirates starter, leaving five runners stranded on base in the first four innings. In the bottom of the first, Steiert-Couture was thrown out at home after Minor hit a double. In the bottom of the fourth, Chase Scott was thrown out at home after missing the sign by the third base coach on a hit by Cayden Trujillo.
The offense found its rhythm in the bottom of the fourth, beginning with a bunt from Andrew Bain and a throwing error from the visitors allowing Minor to score. Scott followed that with an RBI single to score Bain. Steiert-Couture hit an RBI single to score Encarnacion for a 3-0 lead.
Porterville scored a run on a sacrifice fly to right field in the fifth to cut the lead to two runs, 3-1. In the top of the sixth, the visitors scored another run on a hit to cut the lead to a run, 3-2. The Coyotes responded in the bottom of the inning with Trujillo hitting an RBI triple to score Cayden Johnson, and as Trujillo reached third base the Porterville outfielder overthrew the ball with it going into the Coyotes dugout for an error. That brought Trujillo home and extended the lead to 5-2.
In the top of the eighth, the Pirates scored a run on a triple to cut the lead to two runs. Again, the Coyotes offense responded by scoring two runs. After Scott was hit by a pitch to take first and then had Jorge Amaya come on as a pinch runner for him, Encarnacion came up and hit an RBI triple to score Amaya and he then scored on a sacrifice fly to left field by Johnson to extend the lead to 7-3.
The Coyotes finished as a team with 33 at-bats for seven runs on 12 hits with five RBIs. They had two batters walk and six batters strike out and left six runners on base. Encarnacion led the team with three hits. Minor, Scott, and Trujillo all had two hits. Steiert-Couture, Scott, Encarnacion, Johnson, and Trujillo all had an RBI. Scott spoke on his team's offensive performance.
"We persevered; it wasn't an easy day for us offensively. And that happens quite a bit. We had a big zone at the plate, but we overcame it and we did enough. We made some mistakes early on the bases in a bunt situation, but again we overcame it and that's a huge thing," he said.
The Coyotes (3-0) are on the road for a two-game road trip to Southwestern with the first game on Friday and the second game on Saturday. The first pitch is scheduled for 1 p.m. for both games. Looking at the upcoming series, Scott said, "we get on the road against a really good Southwestern team. We play them every year, and it's a lot of fun, and they are good. We are going to be tested a little bit. We are going to see some good arms; we are going to see a good baseball team."