Baseball is a game of numbers. For the Medical Lake Cardinal baseball team, that number over spring break diamond action was six.
The Cards have continued to struggle in their last six games before and during spring break, when they went 0 for 4. As of press time they stood at 1-1 in Northwest A league play, and 1-6 overall.
Still, despite the losses head coach Austin Sharp sees an upswing in his team on a year-over-year basis.
“This year is a huge improvement over last year, when we were getting blown out by 12 to 15 runs,” Sharp said. “We just weren’t competitive in most games.”
He noted that at this juncture in the season the Cards have won one game and lost four by a total of six runs.”
Odessa vs. Medical Lake
The Cards hosted the Odessa Tigers in non-league play on Tuesday, April 2, in a close game that didn’t go the Cards way in a 4-2 loss.
Freshman Joe Griffey made an impressive debut on the mound, coming up from his normal position behind home plate to pitch five innings with nine strikeouts, and allowing only three hits.
“He pitched great,” Sharp said of Griffey.
Leaving runners in scoring position remains a challenge for the Cards.
“It was the same thing as the Riverside game,” Sharp said, referring to the 5-3 loss on March 30. “We left a lot of guys in scoring position.”
Six Card players were left stranded in the game.
Sharp noted that all four runs scored by the Tigers were close plays at the plate, with runners sliding in to score. He also said that they are a tough team, and said Medical Lake was the only team to score on them this year.
Lakeland vs. Medical Lake
It turned into a hit-fest in another non-league loss to the visiting Lakeland Hawks, later in the afternoon following the Odessa matchup.
“It was a close game up until the fifth inning,” Sharp said. “Then (Lakeland) kind of blew up and it ended up being a 10-run rule.”
Ben Soliday started at pitcher, going four innings. While he pitched four strikeouts, he allowed six hits and nine runs, six of them earned.
Jacob Edison came out of the bullpen to relieve, throwing one strikeout, but allowing another five hits and six runs.
Weston Thomas came in to try and stop the scoring bloodletting. He denied any further hits and threw one strikeout.
Final score: 15-5 Lakeland. Eleven of the Hawks’ runs were in the final inning.
“It was one of those innings you just have to squash and forget about,” Sharp said, calling it the first bad inning of the year.
St. George’s vs. Medical Lake
It was a double-header on Thursday, April 4, as the Cards faced off against St. George’s Prep in Medical Lake. While the Cards held their own in a close 4-2 loss in the first game, the Dragon’s bats were flame-on in the second game in an 11-0 blowout that left the Cards breathless.
Game one saw Sam Gollehon start the game on the hill, pitching all but part of the final inning, with six strikeouts, allowing seven hits and three earned runs, plus one home run that was knocked out of the Medical Lake ballpark in the first inning.
Gollehon was relived by Thomas due to reaching the maximum prep pitch count.
“He pitched really well and got out of some really big jams,” Sharp said of Gollehon.
Sharp blamed the loss on base-running and mental mistakes.
“They cost us maybe three, four, maybe five runs,” he said. “Defensively we played pretty well. It’s base-running fundamentals we need to sharpen-up on.”
But game one of the double-header was just a warm-up round for the St. George’s bats.
Medical Lake vs. St. George’s
If a baseball bat can be used as a bludgeon, then Medical Lake was a battered mess after the second inning of game two of the doubleheader when the Dragon’s brought in seven runners before the Cards retired the side.
“It was one bad inning,” Sharp said. “Again.”
Mayer again started on the mound, allowing two runs in the first inning. Then, in the second inning, St. George’s batters began hitting off his pitches at-will.
“And that was it,” Sharp said.
That, and the fact that St. George’s had “a real good arm on the mound,” showed that “we were not going to be competitive in that game,” Sharp said.
In the end it’s the little things that matter in baseball. Like the number six.
“The big talk of the kids has been six plays,” Sharp said, saying he broke it down to six plays for the team. “If we’d had six plays go our way this season, if we’d made the right decisions, we’d be 5-2 right now. It’s just a couple things — six plays out of however many we’ve played.”
The Card’s were on the road to Colville at press time to start back up in league play against the powerful Indians who are ranked sixth in the state.
Lee Hughes can be reached at [email protected].
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