Gilroy
– Maybe it was too much to expect a season sweep.
The Gilroy High baseball team had already come away with wins in
two close games with archrival Hollister this year, so Tuesday
afternoon’s 4-2 loss to the Haybalers at home shouldn’t have stung
the Mustangs very badly.
Gilroy – Maybe it was too much to expect a season sweep.
The Gilroy High baseball team had already come away with wins in two close games with archrival Hollister this year, so Tuesday afternoon’s 4-2 loss to the Haybalers at home shouldn’t have stung the Mustangs very badly.
And if you believe that, you probably think the Giants were happy just to make the World Series in 2002.
A loss to Hollister is always extra painful for Gilroy, and the fact that it knocked the home team out of its short-lived stay at the top of the TCAL standings made it even more so.
The upside, said Gilroy head coach Clint Wheeler – whose team beat cellar-dweller North Salinas 16-0 Monday in a makeup game to briefly tie Live Oak for first place in the TCAL – is that the Mustangs still control their own destiny.
Despite the win, third-place Hollister (7-4/18-7) cannot catch second-place Gilroy (8-3/14-9) unless the ‘Stangs let them. The Garlic City side, however, has its fate firmly in its own hands over the last two weeks of the season. A showdown with Live Oak at home on May 5 could very well decide the league.
On Tuesday, with a pitching staff running on fumes due to academic ineligibility issues, Gilroy threw Jeremy Teschera (3-0) at Hollister. When Teschera went down with a shoulder strain after recording two outs in the third inning, closer Peter Mickartz came in to pitch – roughly two innings sooner than he is accustomed to doing.
Mickartz, while a bit wild, kept the game locked at 1-1 through the fifth. When Gilroy went up 2-1 in the bottom of that frame on a bit of nifty baserunning by pinch runner Jose Romero (Joe Cano single), it looked like the pitching-thin Mustangs might dodge a bullet.
But in the top of the sixth, the wheels came off.
After giving up a leadoff walk to Hollister’s Scott Mead – who drove in the Haybalers’ first run with a single in the second inning – Mickartz got the next two batters out. All according to plan, but in between those outs, a controversial mistake by the home plate umpire put Mead on second.
On a pitch that should have made the count full on ‘Baler starter Jason Sims, the umpire called ball four. Though Sims was later called back to the plate to finish his at-bat, Mead had moved to second while the ball was still live and could not be made to return to first. Sims then grounded out, moving Mead to third.
Designated hitter Anthony Vasquez plated Mead to make it 2-2 and took his place on third base with a triple to the right field corner that Gilroy’s Joe Cano couldn’t handle. A single by Josh Torrise drove in Vasquez. The Haybaler catcher swiped second base with the score 3-2 and eventually scored the final run for Hollister on a wild pitch from Mickartz.
“We control our own destiny,” said Wheeler after the game, brushing aside the impact of the loss and the umpire’s error. “If we win out (the rest of our games), we’re league champs. We’re not in a horrible situation at all.”
Teschera, he said, should recover quickly from the twinge he felt in the third inning.
“He said he felt better as the game went on,” Wheeler said. “It felt funky, and, you know, we’ll just go from there.”
The coach was clear, however, in saying that his team’s performance in the crucial sixth inning was not the stuff of which league titles are made.
“We’ve got to do a better job. If we want to be champions, we’ve got to make plays. We kind of fell apart a little there.”
Sims (5-3) picked up the complete-game win for San Benito. Mickartz (0-1) took the loss for Gilroy.
Geno Fata scored the Haybalers’ first run in the second inning, while Josh Sterling opened the scoring for the Mustangs in the first. Gilroy designated hitter Dominic Wilkins made it interesting with a leadoff double in the bottom of the seventh, but Gilroy was unable to score him.
Hollister 4, Gilroy 2
R H E
HOL 010 003 0 4 5 3
GIL 100 010 0 2 4 4
WP – J. Sims (5-3)
LP – P. Mickartz (0-1)
2B – Fata (Hollister); Wilkins (Gilroy)
3B – Vasquez (Hollister)
