Baseball: Notre Dame’s Rodarte leaves his mark

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

With the salty smell of sunflower seeds and the scent of my SPF 48 sunblock ribboning through the breeze, today seemed like one of those perfect baseball days. You know the kind -- the ones where it’s like watching a midsummer night baseball game in a cornfield except without any dead 1919 Chicago White Sox players running around.

Of course, the beautiful weather isn’t the only thing I’m going to remember about this afternoon’s Mission League opener between Notre Dame and St. Francis. Notre Dame pitcher Nik Rodarte had one heck of a performance, scattering six hits over 6 2/3 scoreless innings to lead the Knights to a 2-0 victory over their visiting league rivals.

Rodarte’s strong pitching performance took me a little by surprise. I know it’s his third win and, as Coach Tom Dill said, ‘he’s got even better stuff,’ but I was expecting more from Rodarte in the batter’s box rather than on the mound. After all, he came into this afternoon’s game batting over .600 with nine hits and 10 RBIs.

Unfortunately, Rodarte had his first hitless game of the season, but his pitching more than made up for it. And, let’s give him a break -- St. Francis pitcher Ramiro Carreon was looking pretty good himself (6 IP, five hits, five Ks). His only boo-boo came in the fourth inning when Nick La Face sent a fastball into the football stadium grandstands beyond the left-field wall.

As for Rodarte, here’s what he had to say about his memorable game:

-- Austin Knoblauch