The Santa Barbara Foresters were hurt by some base-running mistakes and pitching rustiness, and ran up against solid pitching from the Arroyo Seco Saints in a 5-2 baseball loss on Thursday night at Pershing Park.
Arroyo Seco scored three runs in the fifth inning off reliever Robert Cranz to take a 4-0 lead and got a homer in the eighth from Alex Birge to hand the Foresters their second loss of the young season.
Gianni Horvatt scored in the fifth on a Daniel Patterson ground out and Will Rogers singled home Ryan Black in the bottom of the ninth for Santa Barbara’s runs.
Down 5-2, the Foresters had two runners on in the ninth when Rocco Garza-Gongora hit a sinking liner to right field. But Arroyo Seco right fielder Jared Quant made a beautiful diving catch to rob Garza-Gongora and end the game.
“I thought the ninth inning was good,” said Santa Barbara coach Bill Pintard. “Will Rogers continues to lead our team. And then Garza, facing a guy throwing 92-94 (mph), he put a good swing on it.”
After scoring 12 runs against the Saints on Tuesday, the Foresters were held in check by four Arroyo Seco pitchers at home.
Starter Caleb Reyes and relievers Kevin Warunek, Anthony Giannette and Aaron Treloar combined to limit the Foresters to five hits, with Rogers and Horvatt collecting two apiece. Santa Barbara also stranded 12 base runners.
“They pitched well,” said Pintard of the Saints. “Their first guy was really weird (in his pitching motion). He had us out of sync. We figured out how to counteract that, because we were going to run on that. But by the time we figure it out, he was out of the game.”\
Santa Barbara started recent Grace Brethren High graduate Hunter Watkins of Simi Valley and he gave up one run and three hits, walked two and struck out one in three innings.
“Our guy did okay,” said Pintard of the 6-foot-9 right-hander who’s headed to Grand Canyon University. “He had a tough inning in the third.”
Watkins gave up a lead-off double to catcher Jaime Perez, walked Max Blessinger and then threw two wild pitches that allowed Perez to score the first run of the game.
Cranz took over in the fourth inning and ran into trouble in the fifth. Perez singled to start the inning, Blessinger drew a walk, Perez stole third and Mason Hammonds followed with a RBI single for a 2-0 Saints’ lead. After Quant walked to load the bases, Cranz was replaced by Mason Koch.
“That was Cranz’s first outing in a month,” said Pintard of the Wichita State right-hander. “He’s been throwing (bull)pen but he hasn’t been throwing to batters. He usually has better command.”
Arroyo Seco’s Jones greeted Koch with a two-run double into the left-field corner to make it 4-0.
Koch made a nice defensive play to help get out of the inning without further damage. With Quant at third, he fielded a come-backer, got Quant in a rundown and threw to third baseman Danny Patterson who tagged out the runner.
The Foresters had scoring chances in the fifth in sixth innings but hurt themselves by getting thrown out on attempted steals of second base.
“We missed a sign that put us in a hole. The guy thought we had a hit and run, and we didn’t have a hit and run,” said Pintard of the miscue in the fifth. “Then the other guy side-stepped and we don’t do that. We had two base-running errors.”
The Saints made it 5-1 in the eighth on a solo homer to right field by Birge off Koch, who had six strikeouts in four innings of work.
“I thought Koch pitched really well,” said Pintard. “(Birge) is a good hitter and he threw a cutter that didn’t really cut. It just kind spun over the middle of the plate and he hit it out.”
The Foresters (2-2) are back in action today against the Conejo Oaks in Thousand Oaks. They return to Pershing Park to face the Oaks on Saturday at 6 p.m.