Titans Can Live With Prosperity--Barely

Five runs in the first inning against the No. 1 team in the nation.

Two more runs in the second inning.

The coupon-clipping Titans of Cal State Fullerton stared at the Rosenblatt Stadium scoreboard, blinked, blinked again and looked at one another.

What is this?

A surplus?

Please, explain this strange and alien concept.

CS FULLERTON 7, MIAMI 0. For Titan eyes, it was a sight to behold.

But as they did, Titan imaginations began to wander.

“I was thinking 15 runs,” catcher Jason Moler said. “Or 20. As many as we could get. I wanted to blow them out.”

Wednesday’s game was nine outs old and already the Titans had Friday on their minds. Stomp the Hurricanes here, leave them gasping and wounded, and mop them up in the semifinals. Walk Dan Naulty through an easy complete game, set up staff ace James Popoff for the clincher and maybe get a haircut before Saturday’s nationally televised College World Series final.

“We got a little too confident,” second baseman Steve Sisco surmised, “and, maybe, a little too relaxed.”

The sensation didn’t last for long. By the bottom of the eighth inning, with Miami line drives exploding at Titan feet and off Titan shins, the team mood in the Fullerton dugout had shifted to full-on white-knuckle fever.

At first, Miami began ebbing away Fullerton’s lead like a leaky bathroom faucet.

Solo home run by Kevin DiGiacomo in the sixth inning.

Solo home run by Donald Robinson in the seventh inning.

But in the eighth, pipes were bursting all over and Fullerton Coach Augie Garrido was wading through the trouble, wondering if there was a plumber in the house.

Usually, Chad Dembisky is Garrido’s man. The senior relief pitcher has been on a late-season roll, allowing no runs in two regional appearances, striking out five Hurricanes in 2 2/3 innings Sunday night and yielding but one earned run in his last 25 1/3 innings.

“It’s been ridiculous,” Moler said, admiringly.

The laughing stopped with two outs and two runners on base in the bottom of the eighth. Dembisky pitches to Robinson and Robinson slices the ball into left field. There, a sprinting Dante Powell is confronted with two possible courses of action.

Dive, in the one-in-100 chance of making the catch and CNN’s Play of the Day.

Or play the odds and play the ball on a hop, holding Robinson to a single that would load the bases for the No. 9 slot in Miami’s batting order.

Powell, being an excitable freshman, dived, of course. No highlights tonight. The ball skidded past him and by the time Powell could clamber to his feet, DiGiacomo had scored from second, Frank Mora was standing on third base and Robinson was bouncing on second.

Fullerton 7, Miami 3.

Next up for Dembisky: pinch-hitter Keith Tippett, carrying a .234 average to the plate.

No matter. Tippett drills a two-hopper up the middle that Sisco smothers behind second base with a head-first plunge. One run is in, but another is saved.

Fullerton 7, Miami 4.

Next up for Dembisky: leadoff hitter Gino DiMare, hitless in his previous three at-bats.

No matter. DiMare smashes a line drive off Dembisky’s left shin and the ball ricochets into foul ground. DiMare is safe at first, Robinson is across home plate and Dembisky is afraid to ask what can go wrong next.

“Basically, the wheels were falling off,” Dembisky said. A seven-run lead was down to two and a limping Dembisky had to pitch to another pinch-hitter, Greg Coleman, the Servite High graduate who spent a redshirt season at Fullerton before transferring to Miami.

So, Coleman wasn’t psyched for this at-bat or anything like that.

Dembisky got Coleman to send a slow roller down the third-base line. Maybe too slow. Maybe a non-No. 1 draft pick doesn’t make the play. But Phil Nevin got to the ball and sent it screaming across the infield to first, nipping Coleman by a step.

Dembisky was out of the inning, an inning spent pitching while looking over his shoulder at Popoff, Friday’s scheduled starter, if and when, warming up in the bullpen.

“I’m saying to myself, ‘No way am I going to pitch poorly enough to let him in the game,’ ” Dembisky said. “Obviously, I did. . . . Thank God for James.”

Around him in the dugout, the Titans picked up the chorus. Popoff opened the ninth inning by retiring Johnathen Smith, a .319 hitter, on a grounder to third and getting cleanup man Charles Johnson to pop to shallow right field, a catchable ball.

In comes right fielder Jeremy Carr, out goes Sisco. Here comes the ball.

In Sisco’s glove . . . and out.

“To me, that’s a routine play,” Sisco said, chiding himself. “I didn’t have to run after it that hard. It kind of kicked off my thumb and then it seemed to go in slow motion for a while--I’m watching my glove close and it’s not there.

“Just trying to make it a little exciting, I guess.”

Runner on first, two outs to go. Popoff pitches to DiGiacomo. Another popup.

This one, Sisco squeezes until the seams groan and it’s down to Popoff and Mora. Mora has five home runs this season. Make it six and the game is tied.

Oh-and-one. Mora swings. Eyes slam shut in the Fullerton dugout.

Grounder to third. There’s Nevin, the Titans’ good-hands person. Scoop is made. Throw is completed.

First baseman D.C. Olsen catches the ball and steps on the bag--no detail is too small to be taken for granted anymore--and at last, the Titans can celebrate what appeared to be a slam dunk 2 1/2 hours earlier.

“We started off too fast,” Moler said. “Then we relaxed and we cruised and it almost caught up with us.

“We’ve got to be able to deal with big leads better than this.”

Big or small, they don’t come that often in a College World Series, against a 55-9 Miami ballclub, one step shy of the championship round.

The games, however, remain the same size. Barring a tie, they always end after nine innings, Titans, never two.