The Santa Barbara Foresters continued to keep the bats hot in Friday night’s 13-6 victory over Walnut Creek at UCSB’s Caesar Uyesaka Stadium.
If there was such thing as a triple-double in baseball, the ‘Sters covered it, compiling 13 runs off 14 hits and 10 walks at the plate.
Santa Barbara fell behind early, with starting pitcher Gary Cornish giving up runs in both the 1st and 2nd inning against the Crawdads.
Walnut Creek’s Sawyer Gieseke came home on a passed ball in the top of the 1st, and CF Dustin Miller brought home Casey Bowman on an RBI single to left to quickly make it 2-0.
Santa Barbara tied the game up in the bottom of the 5th, with an RBI double from Tyler Neslony to bring home Granger Studdard to knot things up at 2-2.
The Foresters put up a 6-spot the following inning, to break open the game 8-2. David Greer brought in both Ryan Chandler and Matt Henderson with a 2-run single off the wall in center. Neslony added to the damage, with a 2-run triple down the 1st base line to bring in Studdard and Greer.
Neslony had another solid day at the plate for the Foresters, finishing 3-4 with 4 RBIs to boost his total to 14 on the season for third best on the team.
Santa Barbara added five more runs in the 7th as the Crawdads struggled to find the strikezone.
Walnut Creek RHP Sam Carter had 5 walks in the inning alone. John Holland’s sacrifice fly scored Montalbano followed by an RBI single to right from pinch hitter Kaleb Denny.
Foresters starter Gary Cornish put out another quality start allowing just 2 earned runs with 6 strikeouts to get the win. He now improves his record to (5-1) on the year for the most wins on the staff.
Walnut Creek’s Tom Caulfield takes the loss, giving up 2 runs and 2 hits in just a third of an inning.
“In a really long game with so many walks it can be hard to stay focused, but you just have to work on the little things to stay in it,” said Jeremy Montalbano. “We have great team chemistry. We just gotta keep having fun and winning baseball games.”
