Things Have Way of Evening Out for Wise

Last spring, when Matt Wise was pitching for Cal State Fullerton, his record didn’t come close to the quality of his performances.

Wise was only 5-8 for the season, but four of those losses were by one run and two others were by two. He went through one stretch in which he gave up no more than two earned runs a game for six consecutive starts.

Big West Conference baseball coaches looked beyond that won-loss record to his solid earned-run average (3.50 for the season) when they selected him for the all-conference first team. And the Angels did the same thing when they drafted him in the sixth round.

But sometimes things do have a way of evening out, and since Wise started pitching for the Boise Hawks in the short-season Class-A Northwest League this summer, he has been almost unbeatable.

He is 8-1 for the season in 13 starts.

“I haven’t lost a 2-1 game yet,” Wise said. “And in one of those victories, we won the game, 27-2. It’s been a lot of fun. That’s for sure.”

Wise leads the Boise pitching staff in victories and his ERA is an impressive 3.52. He has given up 51 hits in 71 2/3 innings, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio is 77 to 33.

When he made his 12th start of the season Aug. 13 against Southern Oregon, his rival was Marcus Jones, the former Long Beach State pitcher. Wise says he couldn’t help thinking back to a pair of 2-1 losses he endured against the 49ers last season, though neither of them came against Jones, the 1996 Big West pitcher of the year and a former Esperanza standout.

“It certainly ran through my mind,” Wise said. “But thankfully they didn’t have Izzy Gonzalez in the lineup.”

It was Gonzalez who broke up a no-hitter by Wise, then homered in the ninth inning for a 49er victory in one of Wise’s two losses to Long Beach last season.

“The other night, I gave up two runs in the first inning and went out in the fifth inning behind, 2-0, but the offense scored four runs in the bottom of the fifth to get me the victory,” Wise said. “That’s the way it’s been going for me.”

But Wise also has been pitching well. He gave up only three hits on Aug. 13, while Jones took his third loss of the season in four decisions on a night when he allowed five hits and four runs in 4 2/3 innings.

Wise says he has been working on improving his curve and changeup.

“In college, probably 90 out of 100 pitches I threw were fastballs,” he said. “On this level, you have to be able to throw more pitches successfully, and I’ve worked a lot more on getting inside on batters than I did before. They’ve worked some with my mechanics and they have me throwing a little more from a three-quarter motion, rather than straight overhead.”

Wise says one of the keys is the confidence he gained last spring with the Titans. “Coach [George] Horton and Coach [Dave] Serrano helped me a lot, but the big thing was they really believed in me as a pitcher. That meant a lot.”

*

Two other players on last season’s Titan team also are playing in the same league.

Infielder Jerome Alviso, drafted in the 17th round by the Colorado Rockies, is with Portland (Ore.) and first baseman C.J. Ankrum, taken in the 13th round by the San Francisco Giants, is with Salem (Ore.).

Ankrum started the season strong, but his batting average has dropped to .257. Alviso is batting third in the lineup and hitting .296.

“I never considered myself an aluminum bat type of hitter, so the wood hasn’t been an adjustment for me,” Alviso said. “I’d used it before in the Cape Cod League. But I am batting up higher in the order than I did in school, and that’s probably made me be a little more selective about the pitches. You can’t be as much of a free-swinger as you could when you were down in the order.”

Alviso has been splitting time between second base and shortstop, but is spending more time at shortstop lately.

Boise is in first place in its division in the Northwest League and Portland is in first place in the southern division so Alviso’s and Wise’s teams could meet in the playoffs.

“I saw Matt earlier in the season,” Alviso said. “He was really pitching well.”

Wise held Alviso hitless that night, and gave up only three hits in 6 2/3 innings while striking out 15.

*

The pro careers of two other players from last season’s Titan team also have started well.

Mike Lamb, a seventh-round draft selection by the Texas Rangers, is batting .327 for the Class-A team in Pulaski, Va. Outfielder Scott Seal, drafted by the San Diego Padres, has moved up to the Class-A Midwest League team in Clinton, Iowa, and is hitting .299 after 17 games there. He started the season in the rookie Pioneer League.

Another Titan starting pitcher, Brian Tokarse, didn’t sign until mid-July. The Angels, who drafted him in the 11th round, assigned him to Butte (Mont.) in the Pioneer League, and he’s 1-3 after four starts.