HIGH SCHOOL ROUNDUP : Silva Keeps His Cool, Pitches Hilltop to Victory

Jose Silva blushed a little and smiled a lot. He shrugged his shoulders a few times, too.

Silva, a 17-year-old, right-handed pitcher for Hilltop High, was trying to communicate the idea that he didn’t quite throw as well as his three-hit, 12-strikeout performance would indicate.

It was good enough for a 2-0 victory over Sweetwater in both schools’ Metro Conference baseball opener Friday at Hilltop, but Silva (2-0) didn’t seem satisfied.

Maybe it was the three walks. Silva had allowed only seven in his previous 21 innings this year. Perhaps it was because two Sweetwater hits--both by catcher Gilbert Benitez--came on a two-strike count, and a third was a pop fly down the right-field line.

Silva wouldn’t deny it was a fine effort--one that lowered his ERA to 0.75--but still he searched for excuses.

“Too cold,” he said. “It’s tough to get (in the groove) on cold days. You get tight too quickly.”

Perfectionists can be merciless with themselves. But Silva was not alone in the assessment.

Said Hilltop Coach John Baumgarten, “I went to him in the fourth (inning) and said, ‘You look like you’re running on only six cylinders instead of eight,’ and he said he was having trouble getting loose.”

Silva, who is committed to a scholarship at San Diego State and is one of the top-rated professional prospects in the nation, struck out nine of the first 17 batters he faced through four innings.

He added two more strikeouts in the fifth and one in the seventh and needed only 14 pitches to retire six in a row in the final two innings. Of his 97 pitches--mostly fastballs in the 80-85 m.p.h. range and an improved curveball--only 33 were balls.

Said Hilltop catcher Jorge Munoz, pointing to a swelled joint on his left index finger, “See how bruised I am. I get that daily because of him.”

Still, Silva seemed much more pleased with his second-inning, one-out double that one-hopped the right-field fence. One out later, freshman first baseman Nate Dighera drove Silva home with a single to center to give the Lancers a 1-0 lead. Back-to-back doubles by Sergio Guzman and Munoz produced the game’s other run in the fourth.

Sixth-ranked Hilltop improved to 6-1-1, 1-0. Sweetwater fell to 3-3-1, 0-1.

Other than the three doubles, Hilltop had only two more singles off Sweetwater junior Lorenzo Inzunza (1-2), who did not walk a batter and struck out four.

“Lorenzo pitched great,” Silva said. “He has a heck of a good curveball. People sometimes overlook pitchers like Lorenzo.”

Mostly because of pitchers like Silva.