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Defensive blunders, lack of timely hitting plague Coyotes in 11-6 loss to Santa Barbara

By Cheeto Barrera, Sports Editor, The Daily Independent

"We know we have to be first or second to get in the playoffs anyway, so we need to get better from today.”

If you take away the second and eighth innings, Cerro Coso had a good day. But as it stands, those two innings accounted for eight of Santa Barbara's 11 runs on the day, leading to an 11-6 loss in the Coyotes' final preseason contest.

Both innings, one error accounted for two runs and both led to big innings for the Vaqueros.

In the second inning, a soft grounder to pitcher Darren Travers led to two runs when he over threw catcher Jake Orr, scoring two runs.

The missed opportunity allowed the inning to stay alive for Santa Barbara who scored a run on a single and bad throw from third base to first.

In the eighth, Cerro Coso had battled back to pull the game to 7-5 and the inning started with a triple by Tyler Overstreet to left field when a ball got past a diving Ryan Klorman. A flair to right field by Brenden Pichette scored Overstreet and he was brought home on a single by Aaron Bauman.

After reliever Ryan Fischer got a ground out with runners on second and third, he induced another ground ball, this time to short stop Fred Bello. He threw home, but the ball went wide of Josh Gust, allowing two runs to score.

In all Cerro Coso had three errors, resulting in five runs.

Travers, aside from the second inning, gave up one hit, allowing three base runners and struck out three. He finished the day with four runs on four hits (none earned) through five innings, walking one.

“Darren Travers, I thought did a nice job, except for that one inning and he hurt himself that one inning,” Adams said. “He threw the ball away and that was a big play in that inning, but his left fielder didn't hit the cutoff man twice. ... The whole object on defense is to keep the double play in tact and they did it twice.”

In both instances that Adams referred to, the runner scored on the next play.

In relief, none of the Cerro Coso pitchers lasted more than one inning, with Drew Firebaugh pitching the sixth, giving up two runs (one earned) on three hits, and striking out one.

Cameron Tutwiler went two thirds of an inning, giving up one earned run on two hits and one walk. He left with the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh.

Fischer got the final out of the inning, striking out Carlos Alonso.

Wes Oliver then got shelled for three runs (one earned) in the eighth in relief of Fischer.

And where the defense had problems, the offense struggled just as much.

“Gee pitchers, thanks,” Adams said. “We just got you back in this game and you go out there and give up a triple, a double and a single - two different pitchers though.”

Adams added the double and the triple were mistakes with locations that allowed the batters to square up and drive the ball.

Trailing 4-0 in the bottom of the second, the Coyotes had runners on second and third with one out and a ground out to the pitcher and a strike out ended the threat. In the third inning, the Coyotes twice loaded the bases, scoring one run.

The lone run came when Joe Keiser scored on a sacrifice fly from Keith Gerber. Keiser had reached on an error by third baseman Alonso to lead off the inning.

Ryan Klorman reached on a fielder's choice and Frank Romero loaded the bases by a second error by Alonso. But with two outs, Anthony Dee grounded out to second baseman Andrew Leighty to end the threat.

Adams had several what ifs about the game, especially for the early innings when the Coyotes threatened when the game was still close. But he said now is when you move on and focus for the start of the Foothill Conference.

“I told our guys preseason is over right now, preseason is over right now and we've got to go on to conference and what we've got to do with our preseason right her is we have to process that and figure out how to get better from it,” Adams said.

He added that he told his players that in 2000, the last time Cerro Coso won the conference, the team was very young, with only a handful of sophomores on the team. That team lost six preseason games and came out to win the conference.
“I'm trying to sell them on that,” Adams said. “(Preseason) doesn't mean anything for playoffs to us. We know we have to be first or second to get in the playoffs anyway, so we need to get better from today.”

Leading the way offensively was Bello who went 4-5, scoring two runs. He was joined by Romero who had two RBIs and Keiser who scored a pair of runs. Mark Moriarty and Dee each went 2-5 on the day, Moriarty also drove in and scored a run.

The Coyotes will travel to College of the Desert on Thursday, sending Eugene Wright to the hill. They will return home on Saturday for a doubleheader against COD with Travers and Steve Johnson scheduled to pitch. Saturday's game will begin at 1 p.m. with the second game to start 30 minutes after.
Both games will be broadcast on 1360 AM KWDJ.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

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