There’s a difference between getting beat and losing.
Bill Pintard felt like the latter happened to his Santa Barbara Foresters in Tuesday’s 4-3 defeat at the hands of the visiting Santa Maria Pilots.
“It’s a team we should have beat. I don’t like losing to teams that we shouldn’t lose to. I don’t mind getting beat, but I don’t like losing, and I felt like today we lost,” he said.
A couple of untimely errors and some sub-par pitching is what bit the Foresters, as Santa Maria’s Nate Carrillo reached base and got to second on a Santa Barbara throwing error before coming around to score the winning run in the top of the eighth.
There were some chippy moments in the game between the two teams, and Foresters first baseman Ryan Hege said it may have been a distraction.
“We just lost focus and got too caught up in bickering and stopped focusing on the game,” said Hege.
Pintard said that allowing such things to affect the team is unacceptable.
“If we’re going to get distracted by that kind of garbage, we’re in for a long summer,” he said.
Tim Kelley came into the start having not given up a run in 14 innings pitched, but he allowed one in the top of the first on an RBI single by Jimmy Filter. The Foresters bounced back, however, as leadoff man Casey McMurray was hit by a pitch to start the bottom half of the frame and stole second before coming home on groundouts by Davis Duren and David Harris.
Hege then knocked a two-out triple and came in on a single by Vincenzo St. John. Both had multi-hit games. Kelley settled after that and retired the next eight Pilots he faced. Hege doubled in the third and would score after St. John singled again and Patric Tolentino reached on an error.
The Pilots added two more in the fifth and the final run of the day in the eighth.
An interesting statistic is that the Foresters (11-5, 4-2 CCL) have just one home run on the year as the transition from metal to wood bats continue.
“It surprises me, because we have some dudes that hit home runs in batting practice like it’s nothing… As long as we score runs, I don’t care about homers,” said Hege.
The Foresters are off on Wednesday before hosting the Palm Springs Power Thursday at 5 p.m. All games are broadcast on AM 1490 KIST and www.sbforesters.org.
http://www.sbforesters.org/062309.htm
