The Santa Barbara Foresters scored early and often, includimg two steals of home, and beat Santa Maria Pea Soup, 12-4, in a baseball game on Wednesday at Pershing Park.
Santa Barbara scored 10 runs in the first four innings.
In the first, Jace Jung walked, advanced to third on a single by Peyton Graham and scored on Branden Boissiere’s single.
The Foresters (17-3) scored three in the second on a sacrifice fly by Matthew McLain, a solo homer onto Castillo Street from Jung and a wild pitch that brought home Pat Caulfield.
Santa Barbara made it 8-0 in the third. Ryan Holgate stole home, Christian Encarnacion singled in Noah Cardenas and later scored on a wild pitch and Sean McLain came home on a shortstop error.
In the fourth, Holgate had a RBI double and Sean McLain added a run-scoring single for 10-0 advantage.
Santa Maria tallied four runs in the fifth. Jay Prather ripped a two-run double, Ray Jones had a RBI sacrifice fly and Jamey singled in a run.
The Foresters capped the scoring with two runs in the seventh on a RBI single by Peyton Graham and another steal of home by Caulfield, his second theft of the plate this season. Caulfield has 19 stolen bases this summer.
Nick Nastrini pitched 4.1 innings and allowed four runs on four hits and three walks. He struck out six.
Relievers Titus Groeneweg, Jack Cunningham, Peyton Pallette, Sean Mullen and Elijah Trest combined for nine strikeouts, two walks and seven hits in 4.2 shutout innings.
“Our bullpen was just unreal, all over 90 and spotting all their pitches,” Foresters manage Bill Pintard told sbforesters.org. “They really got the job done tonight.”
The Foresters and Pea Soup play again on Thursday.
Due to county and city health guidelines, no fans allowed at the games.
— Noozhawk sports editor Barry Punzal can be reached at bpunzal@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk Sports on Twitter: @NoozhawkSports. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.