In his Foresters debut, righthander Garret King ruled the mound and the Neptune Beach Pearl’s bats, allowing only four hits in seven scoreless innings. Centerfielder Ryan Chandler’s four hits paced the 13-hit Santa Barbara attack, as the Foresters won 3-1 to extend their season-opening winning streak to seven.
After a rare day off due to Tuesday’s rainout, the Foresters once again got tremendous pitching. The team has allowed one run or less in five of their wins. King, from Texas, walked two while striking out three. Tyler Cohen struck out five during a two-inning save. The Pearl’s only run came on a wild pitch from Cohen on what would have been the third out of the eighth.
Chandler, from Rice University, sparked the offense from the leadoff spot. He led off the game with a double and later scored on Granger Studdard’s groundout. In all, he was four-for-five with a pair of steals and a pair of runs.
“I had a good day at the plate. It may not always be like that, but today was a good one,” said Chandler.
The damage could have been worse, as Santa Barbara left 10 men on base. Jeremy Montalbano, Troy Conyers, and Matt Henderson each had two hits. Henderson also had a pair of steals.
The Foresters and Pearl finish their three-game CCL series on Thursday with a double header to make up Tuesday’s rainout. The first game will begin at 1 pm and be heard on newspress.com. The second, regularly scheduled game will start at 5 pm and be heard online and also on AM 1290, KZSB. —Jim Buckley, with reporting by Amber Treybig
