Baseball: Don’t expect repeat of last year’s Palisades-Chatsworth game

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I’ll be at the Palisades-Chatsworth game Friday afternoon and I’m curious to see how the defending City Section champions will respond afer their close call against Sun Valley Poly in the opening round of the Championship Division playoffs on Wednesday.

Of course, many of you may recall the ugliness that ensued when these teams met in the semifinals last year. There’s no reason to expect a repeat of that plunking-fest, but I’ll let you know if either team is being a little too overly zealous with its brush-back pitches.

Besides, there really isn’t a reason for the eighth-seeded Dolphins (20-11-1) to go with the jam-em’-or-bruise-em’-while-trying tactic. Top-seeded Chatsworth (26-5) isn’t quite the titan it was 12 months ago when eventual first-round draft picks Mike Moustakas and Matt Dominguez were roaming the infield. Sure, the Chancellors are among the favorites to take home another title, but Wednesday’s first rounder proved it’s not a foregone conclusion (isn’t that right, Roosevelt?).

It’ll be interesting to see if Matt Moreno & Co. can provide starter Trevor Takeyama, pictured, some decent run support so he isn’t forced to toss a shutout the way James Wharton had to do against 16th-seeded Poly. And Palisades isn’t a pushover. The Dolphins’ 3-2 victory over Banning proved this team can pull off gutsy wins. Today’s game should be much closer than last year’s ugly blowout.

-- Austin Knoblauch

-- Image by Austin Knoblauch