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Coyotes shelled in seventh, lose 15-4 to El Camino

By Cheeto Barrera, Sports Editor, The Daily Independent

“In the first five innings, we did not have one thing go our way, not one thing go our way,”

A scrappy duel turned into a rout as El Camino tagged Cerro Coso for six runs in the seventh inning to go on to win 15-4 on Friday night.

The loss is the first suffered by the Coyotes at home this season.

Going into the top half of the seventh, the game was tied 4-4 before the Warriors sent 11 men to the plate, including three back-to-back RBI hits.

Eugene Wright took the loss, going six and a third innings, giving up seven runs (five earned) on eight hits, five walks and one strike out.

“I thought Eugene had decent stuff at times, but I thought he didn't locate his pitches very well, which cost him the run in the first.”

The Warriors led off the game with a single by Matt Mercier, then moved the runner to third on a bunt and a ground out to second.

Mercier was brought home on an RBI single from Ramon Marquez.

Wright gave up three more runs in through the next four innings, though two came as the result of a dropped ball in right field in the fifth inning.

He was pulled in the seventh, after giving up an RBI single.

Drew Firebaugh came in, faced two batters and didn't record an out, getting pulled after allowing three runs to come across the plate (two were charged to Wright).

Joe Zendejas came in and got the final two outs, but not before one more run came across the plate.
And where the pitching fell apart, so did the hitting.

Cerro Coso had four runs on five hits through five innings and had just two more hits the rest of the way. Only once in those three innings did a Coyote even make it to second.

Twice runners were thrown out on fielder's choices and once getting picked off at first. Keith Gerber made it to third on a Frank Romero single after reaching on an El Camino error.

For the entire game, the bottom third of the line up went a collective 0-7, reaching twice on walks and once on a hit batter.

“In the first five innings, we did not have one thing go our way, not one thing go our way,” Adams said.

El Camino scored its 15 runs on 18 hits and two Cerro Coso errors. The Coyotes had four runs on seven hits and three El Camino errors.

The Coyotes had several weird plays through the game. Fred Bello was called out on a drag bunt where the umpire ruled he was out of the box when he made contact.

The next one came in the fourth on a pop up to what appeared to be deep right. Darren Travers went back, battling the setting sun, and appeared to lose it. Center fielder Romero came charging over to help, only to have the ball land in near straight away center. The result was a triple that led to a run one batter later.

Adams said it was just one of those things where his team happened to be on defense when the sun created a glare over the mountains before the field lights could take affect.

The final oddity, was Fred Atuna being ruled to have interfered with the catcher as he attempted to throw out a runner stealing.

Adams said his boys are going to need to step it up offensively if they are going to compete with El Camino today in a double header.

Game time is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m., with the second game to start 30 minutes after the first one is finished.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

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