High School Baseball: Costa Mesa much improved
Four games into the season the Costa Mesa High baseball team is halfway to matching last year’s win total.
The Mustangs won their second game, their first in the Newport Elks Tournament, a 6-2 victory against Santiago at home on Saturday.
A year ago, Costa Mesa Coach Paul Grady’s team didn’t earn its second win until April 24. The Mustangs are in their second week of games, and Grady likes what he has seen so far from this current group.
The Mustangs (2-2) have split their first two games in the tournament’s Orange County Division. Their final pool-play game is at Cerritos (1-3) on Monday at 3 p.m.
“It was a good win for us,” Grady said. “It was a good turning point to get us back at .500, and hopefully we can move up from there. [We] look to have a winning record the rest of the year.
“This year we have the pitching. If a guy can’t do the job or [he gets hurt], I got guys to go to this year.”
Pitching is what can help Costa Mesa turn things around after it finished 4-21 overall and 3-11 in the Orange Coast League last year.
Three pitchers took the mound for the Mustangs and all they allowed were three hits, all singles. Grady made a pitching move early, after he said starter James Barton felt some discomfort in his right arm in the first inning.
Skylar Manning, a sophomore, started the second and pitched well, tossing four hitless innings, three of which were scoreless, to get the decision.
The Mustangs gave Manning (1-0) enough support. Grady Conner, a left-handed hitter, went two for three with two doubles and a run batted in, while Ryan Lether doubled in a run and Christian Large and Miguel Rodriguez each singled in a run.
Santiago (0-2) took the lead first. A two-out infield single by Joseph Ramirez and a single by Tito Nunez that got past by the left fielder in the first inning resulted in a run for Santiago.
In the bottom half of the inning, the Mustangs responded.
Conner’s ground-rule double to right field started things, and then Omar Munoz walked on four straight balls, the first of his four walks in the game. Lether drove in a run with a double into the gap in right-center field. With the infield playing in, Large’s blooper to right field fell for a single, bringing in another run.
After Barton faced five batters in the first inning, the Mustangs brought Manning in the second.
The Cavaliers also changed pitchers in the second. Hector Hernandez exited after 1 2/3 innings. He gave up another ground-rule double to Conner. This one bounced over the fence in left-center field and drove in a run to make it 3-1 Costa Mesa, ending Hernandez’s afternoon early.
His replacement, Danny Prieto, got out of a jam. He walked Munoz, putting runners on the corners, but Prieto, a left-hander, picked Munoz off at first base.
The score remained in Costa Mesa’s favor because of Manning. The right-hander blanked Santiago in the second, third and fourth innings. Only one batter reached base during the stretch, on a walk, and Manning retired the side in order in the third and fourth.
The Mustangs added a run in the bottom of the fourth, extending their advantage to 4-1. Prieto ran into control issues, walking three batters in the inning, the first one he put on was Rodriguez, who wound up scoring.
Prieto escaped further damage after consecutive two-out walks to Conner and Munoz. With the bases loaded and the cleanup hitter up at the plate, Prieto got Lether to fly out to right field.
After three straight scoreless innings by Manning, Santiago cut the deficit in half in the fifth. A couple of throwing errors to first by the second baseman and a hit batter allowed the Cavaliers to score a run.
Costa Mesa pushed the lead to 6-2, scoring twice in the bottom half of the fifth. Rodriguez’s bloop single to right field picked up the first run and then he came around to score from third on a passed ball.
Dominick Santos entered in the sixth and ran into some trouble. His first pitched plunked a batter and the next four went for balls.
Santos threw seven balls before he found the strike zone. He was able to get the next three hitters out, as the Cavaliers stranded runners on second and third. Santos had two strikeouts during his two innings.
“From the beginning of the season our hitting has been the problem,” said Santiago first-year coach Rafael Rodriguez, whose team didn’t record a hit between the second and sixth innings. “We’re still struggling, trying to figure that out.”
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Newport Elks Tournament
Pool play
Costa Mesa 6, Santiago 2
SCORE BY INNINGS
Santiago 100 010 0 – 2 3 3
Costa Mesa 210 120 x – 6 6 3
Hernandez, Prieto (2), Ramirez (5) and Adams; Barton, Manning (2), Santos (6) and Rodriguez. W – Manning. L – Hernandez. 2B – Conner (CM) 2, Lether (CM).
