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Santa Barbara fell 8-7 in Thursday night’s ballgame resulting in the Foresters first series loss of the year. Four Forester errors lead to seven unearned runs, which proved to be the difference as the Capitalists were able to squeak out the victory.
The Caps jumped out to an early lead in the top half of the second inning as a routine inning ending groundball was misplayed. This allowed three unearned runs to cross, and the Foresters found themselves quickly in the hole 3-0.
Santa Barbara would answer back in the bottom half of the fourth and tie the score at three a piece after a single by Michael Smith was misplayed by the right fielder allowing himself and Lex Kaplan to come around and score.
The errors however kept coming, and Pacific Union regained the lead in the top half of the fifth 6-3, with a key hit coming off the bat of Logan Denholm, where Nico Hoerner came in to score.
Despite the four errors in the game, Santa Barbara was able to rally back and put themselves in a position to win the game with the go ahead run at the plate in the bottom of the ninth. With the tying run at first and one out, reliever Chris Rivera was able to close the door on the Foresters and pick up his second consecutive save.
Willy Amador started on the mound for Santa Barbara and pitched well through four innings, allowing no earned runs through his line of work. He earned a no decision in his effort and improved his overall ERA to 2.73 across 26 1/3 innings.
Lex Kaplan and Michael Smith lead the offense with two hits a piece, and will look to continue their hot hitting in tomorrow’s game against the visiting MLB Academy.
Scheduled game time is 5:05 p.m. at Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.
– Jonathan Herkins
