By Matt Mitchell
Foresters manager Bill Pintard always says, “Two-out hits win championships.” Tonight, the Foresters took that mantra to heart.
Of course, good pitching doesn’t hurt either.
“Pitching was awesome tonight,” Pintard said. “We just shut out a really good ball club over there.”
The Santa Barbara Foresters (15-7) used timely hitting, solid pitching, defense and the long ball to overwhelm the Neptune Beach Pearl en route to an 8-0 win in the first of a three-game home series.
Foresters’ catcher Stephen Coe got the offense going early with a two-out RBI single in the second inning to score Josh Jung. Ryan Reynolds followed with another two-out RBI single in third to make it 2-0 Santa Barbara.
Santa Barbara starter Tanner Lawson pitched effectively and was able to escape trouble several times early in the game. Lawson loaded the bases with one out in the third inning, but came back with a strikeout and a groundout to get out of the jam. That would prove to be the Pearl’s best scoring chance of the night and it was unable to capitalize. Lawson finished the game with six innings pitched, six strikeouts and three walks while allowing no runs on five hits.
“I thought he [Lawson] did outstanding,” Pintard said. “He got into some trouble, but we just had to talk to him and keep him chilled out and tell him to not overdo things. He pitched out of some tough jams tonight.”
The Forester bats finally blew the game open in the fifth inning. Austin Todd led off the inning with a triple and Evan Lee drove him in with an RBI single. Josh Jung followed with a double to bring in Lee to make it 4-0.
The exclamation point to the big inning was delivered by an unlikely source. Jimmy Galusky entered the game with only one hit on the season, but he came up with the biggest hit of the game. Galusky lined a three-run shot over the left field fence to make it 7-0 Foresters.
“[Jimmy] Galusky has been hitting the ball hard,” Pintard said. “He’s been hitting line drives but he had nothing to show for it until now.”
Walker Grisanti added another run in the seventh, scoring pinch-hitter John Jensen who had tripled, on to a sacrifice fly to make it 8-0.
Evan Kravetz pitched three innings in relief of Lawson and was borderline unhittable. Kravetz allowed only one hit and struck out four in his three innings of work.
Austin Todd, in addition to playing stellar defense, had a three-hit night for the Foresters. Josh Jung and Stephen Coe also had a pair of hits for Santa Barbara, which had 12 hits on the night.
The Foresters will take on Neptune Beach tomorrow at 6 p.m. at Pershing Park, the second game of a three-game home series against the Pearl this weekend.
