Baseball falls to 1-6-1 after loss
The Citrus College Owls lost an intense back-and-forth matchup against the Mt. San Jacinto Eagles by a score of 8-6 on Feb. 12 at the Citrus College baseball diamond.
In a game that included four lead changes, the Eagles would ultimately prevail as winners.
In the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs, Citrus climbed back into the game with Jonathan Alaniz on first base with Go Hattori at the plate.
A few pitches into the count, with Alaniz giving hefty lead at first base, Hattori swung at a breaking ball and ripped a single past the Eagles’ third baseman.
As Alaniz was rounding second and steamrolling for third, he tripped and fell halfway between second and third and stuck to the dirt like Gorilla Glue.
In what seemed like an eternity, Alaniz quickly got up and attempted to return to second base but was tagged out by the Eagles’ second basemen, ending the contest in an odd but thrilling fashion.
The game ended abruptly for the Owls as they would have had two men on base with the leading runner at the plate in the final inning.
The entire Citrus dugout was in a jaw-dropping moment of awe as the game was snatched from their fingertips and they fell just short.
Despite the close ending and tough loss, coach Steve Gomez said he was pleased with starting pitcher Aaron “A.J.” Oddo’s performance on the mound.
“That was a very bright spot I think,” Gomez said. “He’s had a couple starts and that was the best he’s had. Getting him into the 6th inning, threw over 100 pitches… you know it was probably the best start we’ve had of the season out of any of our starters.”
Oddo was having a great outing but had given up a couple hits in a row to the Eagles.
It was then, in the sixth inning, when coach Gomez trotted out to the mound and brought in relief via Julian Fonseca.
Fonseca struggled from the get go as he gave up four earned runs in just 1 1/3 innings.
Gomez said his decision to pull Oddo was based on a couple different things such as pitch count and the fact that he had given up a couple hits in a row just prior to being pulled.
“When you click anywhere around 100 pitches it really depends on how you’re looking out there,” Gomez said. “If you’re still strong out there you might be able to keep it going…If we got him through that inning, which would have been nice, here he might have been sitting at 115 or 120 and he definitely wouldn’t have gone another one.”
While the choice was tough, Gomez was making the decision that was best for his ball club and this early on in the season and with so many games left to play, pulling his pitcher was the conclusion.
Gomez said he believes the team has more to offer and they are not playing to their capabilities.
With repetitions and more experience that comes each day with practice, he hopes that will help the team progress.
“No doubt we are playing below what is expected to compete,” Gomez said. “This was a more competitive game than we’ve had since the very first game of the year.”
Coach Gomez said it can be difficult to keep a team engaged that hasn’t had the success early on they had hoped for.
“It’s very difficult but there is a lot of games in our season. We play 32, 31 more games…they just have to keep on going out and playing,” Gomez said.
The weather early on in the season has had an impact on scheduling and has resulted in teams playing several games in a row with little to no break in between.
“Especially the way that the schedules have been compacted now with the rain so were just going to be playing. Normally during this time of the year we might have a week with 3 games with practice days in between …now you just play, play, play,” Gomez said.
The skipper appreciated the offensive effort displayed by his team despite the loss.
“We swung the bat a little bit better today I thought we had some better at bats, our strikeouts were down, we’ve been very high on strikeouts up to this point,” Gomez said.
The Owls have been plagued all season long by fielding errors and poor production as well.
“We’ve had some fielding errors but we’ve found the right guys I think,” Gomez said. We feel we’ve got the right outfielders, we just gotta get more production particularly out of a couple of the sophomores that were with us last year,”
The veteran head coach has a positive outlook on the rest of the season and with the tight schedule and a myriad of ways to improve, each game is important for the growth and development of his squad.
“We just gotta go to the next game play a little bit better and try and do some of the things we have not done very well,” Gomez said.
The Owls’ next home game is 2 p.m. on Feb. 22 against the East Los Angeles Wildcats.
