Baseball: City playoff openers go pretty much as expected

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When is an upset not an upset? When it’s the City Section Championship Division, and the coaches seeded teams that didn’t deserve such high seedings.

No one should have been surprised that No. 12 San Pedro knocked off No. 5 Marshall, the Northern League champion, and that No. 10 El Camino Real defeated No. 7 Verdugo Hills, the Sunset Six League champion. Those were easy picks for the ‘underdog’ seeded teams based on their stronger league schedules.

The only opening game that was a surprise involved top-seeded Chatsworth barely getting past No. 16 Poly, 1-0. Once again, I’ll repeat: Chatsworth doesn’t hit the ball well against pitchers who throw strikes and mix up their pitches.

Gustavo Garcia held Chatsworth to three hits. Forget all the Chancellors’ big batting stats. This is a team that wins behind defense and pitching. They can be beaten by a team that plays defense.

It’s on to the second round Friday, and there are some tough matchups. No. 2 Narbonne hosts an El Camino Real team that got three home runs by Mitch Bluman on Wednesday. The bad news for ECR is that its top pitcher, Michael Booth, threw a lot of innings against Verdugo Hills. Advantage: Narbonne.

Sixth-seeded Cleveland travels to East Los Angeles College to play No. 3 Roosevelt in what should be the best game of the day. Again, it comes down to which team is going to make the routine plays, throw strikes and handle the pressure. Advantage: Cleveland.

I expect Chatsworth to rebound against Palisades -- the Chancellors rarely lose home playoff games. And Kennedy should have no problem handling San Pedro.

There’s one potential problem for all the teams. It could rain Friday. That means games could get pushed back to Saturday.

-- Eric Sondheimer