St. Paul Cuts Into Crespi’s Lead, 7-0 : Prep baseball: Guzman pitches two-hitter to trim the Celts’ Mission League advantage to one-half game.

On an overcast day at Valley College, Crespi pitchers spent more time performing in jams than did any drummer in the Grateful Dead’s history.

St. Paul runners reached third base in every inning en route to a 7-0 win Wednesday over Crespi.

The Mission League-leading Celts struggled against St. Paul right-hander Sonny Guzman (5-1), who pitched a pretty two-hitter with seven strikeouts and didn’t allow a Crespi runner past second after the second inning.

Guzman’s only loss this season was a 5-2 decision to Crespi, but he avenged that by keeping the ball low and walking just two.

“It looked bad for a while,” Guzman said of his teammates, who stranded nine baserunners and had another three picked off by Crespi starter Jeff Suppan (4-3). “But we came around and then I thought, ‘All right! 7-0 lead. I gotta finish this now.”’

By finishing Crespi, Guzman also tightened the league standings. Crespi (12-9, 6-2 in league play) holds a half-game lead over St. Paul (13-6, 5-2) with four games to play. St. Paul has five games left.

For all of the time St. Paul occupied the basepaths, it held only a 2-0 lead after six innings. Part of that was because of Suppan’s savvy pickoff moves and part of that was because of Suppan’s ability to squeeze out of trouble.

But in the seventh, Suppan went to a 3-0 count on Noah Negrete, causing Coach Scott Muckey to bring in reliever Ryan Staley, who walked Negrete, hit Steve Escobar, and walked Gus Pelayo to load the bases. Jesse Paderez cleared them with a triple to give St. Paul a 5-0 lead. Muckey pulled Staley in favor of Phillip Aghajanian, who retired the side in six batters--and two more runs--later. From there, Guzman closed the deal.

“We almost didn’t go with him,” St. Paul Coach Leo Gutierrez said. “He struggled a bit against Alemany and Notre Dame and his control wasn’t what it should be. But then we figured, ‘Hey, this may be for the league championship.’ ”