Pirates stumble again
Before the Riverside Community College baseball team could stop leaving men on base, it had to bring a couple men off the bench.
The visiting Tigers stranded 11 baserunners through six scoreless innings, before a defensive replacement and a pinch-hitter each swatted two-run home runs to key a seven-run seventh inning in a 7-1 Orange Empire Conference win over Orange Coast College on Thursday.
The Pirates (15-17, 6-11 in conference) can be no better than the conference’s No. 5 playoff candidate with just four regular-season games remaining. OCC’s sub-.500 record casts significant doubt on the two-time-defending state champion’s viability as an at-large participant in the Southern California Regional playoffs.
It was a season-worst fifth straight loss for OCC, the longest losing streak since it dropped five in a row in April, 2013. Further, Coach John Altobelli’s squad, ranked No. 16 in Southern California, has scored just seven runs in the last five contests. The Pirates managed five hits Thursday and have averaged just six hits per game during the losing streak.
“It’s hard to do anything and it puts pressure on the pitchers,” Altobelli said of his team’s offensive struggles.
Altobelli called Thursday’s effort frustrating and disappointing and he wondered aloud whether there was enough time left to make a push for the postseason.
“We’re going to have to hurry up and get something going really quickly, because we’re running out of time,” said Altobelli, whose team has not missed the postseason since 2006 and has not finished with a losing record since 2004. “It’s in [the players], it’s just a matter of them wanting to come to the yard every day and expect to win, grind it out and get after it. Each game is kind of like the seventh game of the World Series right now.”
For the third straight game, no OCC player had more than one hit.
Freshman first baseman Daniel Hawkins put the Pirates ahead with a two-out, RBI single in the third inning.
OCC freshman starting pitcher Austin Moore somehow made that run stand up, despite playing his own version of a rope-a-dope on the mound. Moore, making just his third start in his 11th appearance this season, and having thrown 20 1/3 innings coming in, blanked the Tigers (19-13, 7-10) on five hits through 5 2/3 innings. Moore walked five and hit two batters, but left the bases loaded in the third inning and stranded two in the second and third innings.
OCC reliever Parker Manahan struck out the first man he faced to end the sixth, leaving two more Tigers holding the bag, as the visitors finished with 15 runners left on base,
But Manahan, a sophomore who came in with an 8.79 earned run average over 14 1/3 innings this season, was less effective in the seventh.
Michael Darr singled to open the Riverside seventh and Mota, who entered the game at first base in the fifth inning, launched a 2-1 pitch over the left-field fence for a go-ahead home run in his first plate appearance of the day.
After an infield single and a groundout, Cole came off the bench to belt a two-run bomb over the fence in left-center field, and two fielding errors by sophomore third baseman Jaiden France led to three more unearned runs for the visitors.
J.T. McLellan, Jake Scott, John Balliet and Mondesi Gutierrez added hits for OCC, which is batting .189 during the five-game skid.
“We just have to get some guys who want to show up and want to compete everyday, and we’re having a hard time doing that,” Altobelli said.
The Pirates visit Riverside on Saturday at noon, before wrapping up the regular-season with three games against Santa Ana, Tuesday, Thursday and April 29.
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Orange Empire Conference
Riverside 7, Orange Coast 1
SCORE BY INNINGS
RCC 000 000 700 – 7 12 0
OCC 001 000 000 – 1 5 2
Agramont, Ramirez (6) and Grande; Moore, Manahan (6), Ashworth (7), Cottone (8) and Garcia. W – Ramirez, 4-5. L – Manahan, 1-2. 2B – Scott (OCC), Darr (RCC). HR – Mota (RCC), Cole (RCC).
