Lackluster Royal Collapses Against Newbury Park

His baseball team has played only one league game, yet Royal High Coach Mike McCurdy talks as if he’s ready to call it a season and just go home. McCurdy’s Highlanders were beaten, 11-1, in a Marmonte League game Wednesday at Newbury Park as four pitchers allowed three doubles, a grand slam, seven walks and hit two batters. Offensively, the Highlanders were victimized by three double plays, including one on an infield fly.

After the game, McCurdy shook his head and pondered the possibility of playing the rest of the season with a team that generated as much enthusiasm as a field trip to the library.

“Our problems go a lot deeper than the pitching,” McCurdy said. “Right now the team is not mentally ready to play the game. We have no enthusiasm. If we continue to play in league like we played today, it’s going to be a long season. Every team in our league is good and we’re not. Even though we’ve only played one league game, our backs are to the wall.”

“I just don’t think we’re playing like a team,” Royal third baseman J.P. Hardy said. “We have a lot of problems right now.”

So much for early season optimism.

But McCurdy and Hardy weren’t the only ones who noticed something was amiss with Royal. Newbury Park pitcher Jeff Berman said he entered the game expecting to be hit hard.

Berman (1-1) was hit by Royal--three whole times--as he went the distance, striking out seven. “I just thought they were going to come out hitting,” Berman said. “But they just didn’t hit as much as I thought they were going to.”

In the first inning, two walks by Berman put Royal runners on first and second with one out. But Berman escaped when cleanup hitter Sean Sullivan took his first called third strike of the season and Mike Keegan, who was running on the pitch, was doubled up at third.

Newbury Park (3-7, 1-1) took a 2-0 lead in the third on doubles by Don Smith, Doug Rich and Wally Thornhill.

Royal (3-3-1 overall, 0-1 in league) looked ready to mount a rally of its own in the top of the fourth, but another baserunning blunder took the Highlanders out of it.

With runners on first and second and nobody out, Sullivan hit a popup in front of the mound and was called out under the infield fly rule. But a collision between Berman and first baseman Tim Bohling jarred the ball from Berman’s glove. Keegan, who had been standing on second base, bolted toward third but was thrown out when Bohling picked up the ball and threw to Scott Corlew.

“We do a lot of stupid things like that and it loses games for us,” McCurdy said. “Some coaches go through their entire lifetime without seeing an infield fly turn into a double play. Now I’ve seen it twice in two years.”

In the bottom of the fourth, Newbury Park turned the game into a rout with seven runs on six hits, including a grand slam by Thornhill.