Dos Pueblos is out in front of the ultra-competitive Channel League baseball race, and Bradley Tirador’s durable arm is one of the biggest reasons why.
After pitching five innings of 3-hit ball in Tuesday’s win over San Marcos, the junior hurler went another five against the host Royals in Thursday’s 4-1 victory. This time, he allowed just two hits and no earned runs while setting the Royals down in order in the third, fourth and fifth innings before developing a blister on his finger and giving way to Tyler McGaughey.
Tirador had actually told coach Nate Mendoza that he could take the mound for Wednesday’s game against Ventura (a 10-9 loss in extra innings).
“I said my arm felt good yesterday to throw. I really wanted to throw,” said Tirador. “Then he called me up on the bus yesterday and asked me if I was good and I said yeah. I wasn’t going to throw five, but I felt good so I stayed in.”
He got better as he went.
San Marcos’ Landon Boneck started off the game with a walk and eventually scored on a two-error play at first. After one more walk in the first and a single in the second, the San Marcos bats fell asleep.
“I thought we were on him early and hit the ball hard a couple of times but right at guys,” said coach Rob Crawford. “For us it seems to be a game of momentum. If it doesn’t go our way early, I think our guys start to press a little. I don’t think our guys have been in the thick of things before, and it adds a little bit of pressure.”
Ryan Ventura knocked in Steve Reveles to get DP on the board in the first. Jesus Salas got on board with a one-out walk in the second and wound up coming home on the first of San Marcos’ four errors to make it 2-1.
Michael Spiritosanto hit a two-out double in the third — the only extra-base hit of the day — and came home as Dane Limosnero and Shane Micheel hit back-to-back first-pitch singles. Micheel walked in the fifth and later scored on Johnny Corazza’s second single of the day to make it 4-1.
DP’s defense was also flawless after the first inning, turning two double plays including a pretty 1-6-3 play to get the first two outs of the seventh. The Chargers now control their own destiny at 6-4 in the league with four games to play. Crawford, meanwhile, isn’t giving up on the crown yet.
“This is a huge hit, but I still think a 7-5 record is going to win it. We’ve got four games left, so we can still be 7-5,” he said.
DOS PUEBLOS 4, SAN MARCOS 1
Dos Pueblos…111 010 0 — 4 8 3
San Marcos…100 000 0 — 1 3 4
Tirador, McGaughey (6) and Salas; Marshall, Wieland (6) and RMoore.
2B — DP: Spiritosanto.
Team records — DP 12-11, 6-4; SM 12-10, 3-5.
I would love to see the Dos Pueblos community match their obvious talent on the field with good sportsmanship in the dugout and the stands. The behavior of both players and fans at these high school games is downright embarrassing.
Baseball mom, you need to calm down. It’s obvious you are new to this sport, otherwise you would know that cheering is apart of the game. You are one of those parents that “protects” their son due to severe sensitivity issues. This isn’t little league anymore. I mean, i guess it is understandable that you would be bitter. Either your team sucks, or your kid does, because otherwise why would you say this? I guarantee you would have not posted this comment if your school would have actually won the game they played Dos Pueblos. So next time, try actually winning a game so there will be no more stupid comments like this. Thanks
Thanks for reading and getting the discussion board going. As an editor, I would hope that in the future your posts would not be so contentious. We want to keep this civil, and our mission is to highlight the achievements of local athletes, not criticize teams and parents.
If I’m not mistaken, these comments stem from last week’s games between DP and San Marcos.
I was at both games last week to observe the conduct in question. Dos Pueblos has a noisy dugout, which is indeed part of the game. We even have a video piece set to debut on the site in the coming days in which we filmed the UCSB dugout for a game and did interviews on the different chants and crazy noises that come out of it. From what I heard and saw, the DP players and fans were saying nothing inappropriate. Of course, I may have missed something. Overall, I find their dugout chants and games entertaining and can see that it is important to keeping the energy up during a long game.
As for Critic’s comments (“Either your team sucks…” and “…try actually winning a game…”) : Talk about sensitivity issues! This is high school sports, people!
Also, San Marcos’ team certainly doesn’t “suck.” I think that the turnaround showed by the program this season has been nothing short of remarkable, and Rob Crawford is the first person to thank for that. — he is a class-act.
Thanks for reading!
– Blake Dorfman