By Matt Mitchell
The Santa Barbara Foresters have won eight straight games. Just don’t tell manager Bill Pintard that.
“Have we really won eight in a row?” Pintard asked. “We don’t focus on a number for streaks, we just know that we’ve been on a roll. We don’t talk about them as a team, we just go out and try to play our best baseball every time.”
The Foresters (12-4) did just that, as they took care of the Long Beach Legends in back-to-back games to earn a double-header sweep.
In the opener, the Foresters used a dominant effort from starter Tanner Lawson (3-0), along with some timely late-game hitting, to pick up the 3-1 win victory. Lawson pitched seven innings with eight strikeouts and no earned runs on only three hits, but the Foresters were locked in a 1-1 tie as he exited following the top of the seventh inning. Then the Forester bats finally came alive.
Base hits by Brody Weiss and Chandler Bengston and a hit-by-pitch to Joey Fiske, loaded the bases for Walker Grisanti, who drew a walk to bring home Weiss and give the Foresters the lead for good. Josh Jung followed with a sacrifice fly to deep center field to drive in an insurance run.
Corey Herndon relieved Lawson in the eighth and pitched two scoreless innings to close out the 3-1 win for the Foresters.
The second game of the day was much less nerve-wracking for the Foresters and their fans. Santa Barbara cruised to an 11-3 win courtesy of 14 base hits.
The Foresters got some offense going early, scoring three runs in the first three innings. An error by Legends’ catcher Joe Caparis allowed the Foresters’ Ryan Cash to score from third to give Santa Barbara an early 1-0 lead in the first inning. Luke Ritter drove in two more runs for the Foresters in the third inning on a hard hit grounder. Santa Barbara stretched the lead to 6-2 thanks to RBIs Cash and David Hamilton. Cash would again score on an error, this time by Legends’ third baseman Reese Berberet, to score the final run of the inning.
Long Beach wouldn’t score again and the Foresters cruised to victory from there. Ryan Cash, the Oklahoma State Cowboy, finished the game with two hits, an RBI, a stolen base, and four runs scored. Luke Ritter was the Foresters’ other star of the night, picking up two hits and three RBI. Six different Foresters each had two hits.
Santa Barbara will take on division rival Conejo Oaks tomorrow at Pershing Park in a battle between the top two teams in the CCL Central Division. First pitch is at 6 pm.
“It’s going to be a big game,” Pintard said. “They got us last time and we have to bring our best game. It’ll be fun playing them in our yard in Pershing.”
