Garden Grove League Baseball : Two Out of Three Not Good Enough : Santiago Pitching the Difference in 11-5 La Quinta Victory

Two-thirds of the Santiago High School baseball team performed pretty well in its Garden Grove League game against La Quinta Friday afternoon.

Offensively, the Cavaliers (8-5, 13-8) had eight hits and scored five runs. Defensively, Santiago was solid, committing just one error.

But Santiago’s pitching? Well, that didn’t look so good.

Five Cavalier pitchers allowed nine hits, 10 walks, threw two wild pitches and hit two batters as La Quinta won, 11-5, at home.

In this case, two out of three wasn’t good enough.

“Pitching has been a real weakness for us all year,” said Myron Pines, Santiago coach. “We’re going with position players who have been converted to pitchers. Today, it really fell apart.”

The win moves the Aztecs (8-5, 16-8) into a second-place tie with Santiago, a game behind Garden Grove.

The Cavaliers took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when shortstop Tim Reynolds scored on a throwing error by La Quinta third baseman John Park.

In the second, the Aztecs sent nine hitters to the plate and scored four runs--two on Troy Paulsen’s 10th double of the season--to take a 4-1 lead.

Santiago countered with four runs in the third, two on Ricardo Gallardo’s double. The double tied the score at 4-4 and chased La Quinta starter Randy McGlenn.

Reliever James Marquez walked the first batter he faced and eventually balked in Rick Burns to give the Cavaliers a 5-4 lead. At that point, it looked as if the Aztecs’ pitching staff would be the one to self-destruct.

But Marquez struck out David Petrutis to end the inning and allowed only two hits over the next 3 innings. Marquez (3-1), a sophomore, earned the win.

As the Aztecs’ pitching stabilized, Santiago’s blew up.

La Quinta’s Terry Bryant led off the third with a double off losing pitcher Anthony Candelas (5-3). After Marquez walked, a wild pitch moved the runners to second and third. Bryant scored on Park’s ground ball.

Reliever Carlos Leon allowed an RBI single to designated hitter Guillermo Alcantar and the Aztecs led, 6-5, after three innings.

La Quinta scored three times in the fourth on just one hit, and once in the fifth on none.

“It wasn’t pretty,” said Dave Demerest, La Quinta coach. “But, that’s baseball. These little lapses in any part of your game can kill you. It hurt their pitching today.”

In other Garden Grove League games:

Rancho Alamitos 9, Bolsa Grande 4--Craig Paquette’s two-run double highlighted a five-run inning that broke a 4-4 tie and gave the Vaqueros the win. Rancho Alamitos scored five runs in the sixth inning with the aid of two Bolsa Grande errors.

Paquette had three hits for the Vaqueros and teammate Dalan Taylor added two hits, two stolen bases and scored twice.

Garden Grove 8, Los Amigos 2--Jeff Kanegae pitched a four-hitter and had seven strikeouts for the Argonauts, who scored five runs in the top of seventh. Mike Fergeson was 4 for 5 with two RBIs and Mark Kiefer was 4 for 5 with two RBIs for Garden Grove (9-4, 12-7). Matt Phelps was 2 for 4 and is hitting .500 (27-54) for the Lobos, (1-11, 3-17).