Hart’s Welsh Wins Laurels for Drawing Bases-Loaded Walk

A hero was hard to find Friday in Hart High’s 6-5 win over visiting Chatsworth in a Westside baseball tournament Red Division semifinal.

One finally emerged, although perhaps by the least heroic of deeds.

Hart’s Mike Welsh drew a bases-loaded walk in the sixth to push across the winning run and upstage three teammates.

Hart shortstop John Aguilar blasted a pair of two-run homers to stake the Indians (4-0) to a 4-1 lead after three innings. Aguilar, however, traded his halo for goat horns after booting Matt Gorman’s ground ball with two out and the bases loaded in the fifth. The error allowed two runs to score and capped a four-run inning that ended with Chatsworth ahead, 5-4.

Hart right-hander Doug Distaso also had his moments. He mowed through the Chancellor lineup early, yielding only two hits in four innings. However, he gave up four hits and a walk before Aguilar’s miscue and finished the game in left field.

Distaso’s successor, freshman right-hander Luis Sanchez (2-0), raised a few eyebrows and perhaps invoked images of things to come by displaying good control and pitching two hitless innings to earn the victory.

After the Indians tied the score, 5-5, with a run in the fifth, Hart went ahead in the sixth when Welsh drew a bases-loaded walk on a 3-and-2 pitch in the dirt from reliever Jesse Yeomans. Soren Halladay scored the winning run.

Yeomans had replaced middle reliever Ricky Staves (1-1) with one out in the inning, the bases loaded and Aguilar at bat. The appearance of Aguilar, who had singled and scored in his third at-bat, had Hart fans and a sizable contingent of Chatsworth followers on their feet. But Yeomans struck out Aguilar swinging on a 2-and-2 breaking pitch.

“A calm sea doesn’t make a good sailor,” Hart Coach Bud Murray said. “It was a tough game.”

Doug Dean, the game’s second batter, gave Chatsworth (2-2) a 1-0 lead with a home run. Aguilar answered with a home run with Distaso aboard in the bottom of the inning.

In the third, Distaso led off with a walk and Aguilar followed with his second home run.