SANTA MARIA — The Santa Barbara Foresters took their first road trip of the season on Wednesday, and it seemed almost as if the bat bags weren’t loaded on the bus.
Twenty-three consecutive Santa Barbara hitters were set down at Elks Field as the host Santa Maria Packers prevailed 3-2, handing the Foresters their first loss of the young season.
“It was really strange. The change in scenery might have affected our hitters a little bit,” said coach Pat Burns. “You could just tell our guys weren’t seeing the ball very well.”
Santa Barbara (4-1, 1-1 CCL) got off to a fast start in the game’s first at-bat with local boy Zach Chavez cracking a double off the right field wall and Richie Robnett singling him in to make it 1-0. After that, no Forester reached base until the ninth inning, when Chavez got on board thanks to an error. He eventually came around to alertly score from third when a throw back to the mound from catcher Miles Kizer deflected off the glove of pitcher Brian Oliver.
“He’s an offensive machine, because he does whatever he can to get on base, and once he gets on base he’s running like crazy,” said Burns of Chavez, who just might have a permanent spot on the roster if he continues to shine as he has thus far on the campaign.
The Packers (5-1, 1-1) scored all three of their runs in an unfortunate third inning for Foresters starter Sam Stafford. Stafford, a redshirt freshman from the University of Texas, balked twice in the inning, hit a batter, threw a wild pitch and gave up a single. He still struck out the side, however. The lefty finished with eight strikeouts in five innings, walking five.
“There weren’t many hard-hit balls by either team in this game, so both teams were really struggling,” said Burns.
Despite the woeful 23-batter streak, Santa Barbara found itself in an ideal scenario to come back in the top of the ninth. Chavez was at third and Patric Tolentino at first with two outs when Chavez scored on the dropped throw-back. Robnett, who was launching balls out of the park and onto the busy thoroughfare over the fence during batting practice, came up representing the go-ahead run with Patric Tolentino at first.
“That’s all was working for. I was just saying ‘get the next guy up, get the next guy up’ and we got the situation I was hoping for,” said Burns.
Robnett rocketed a ball hard down the first base line, but Nick Ray made a great play to stop it before stepping on the plate to end the game.
The Foresters are back for another game in Santa Maria on Thursday night with another 6 p.m. start time. All games are broadcast on AM 1490 and www.santabarbaraforesters.org.
