The baseball teams of Turlock High and Pitman High each lost for the first time in the young 2024 season on Wednesday as part of non-conference action.
The Pride, the defending Central California Athletic League champions, lost a 16-6 marathon to Oakdale in five innings while the Bulldogs fell 7-2 to Lodi.
Over at Pitman High School, a 4-0 lead after two innings quickly evaporated for the Pride as errors, walks and wild pitches came in flurries in the final three frames.
On the mound for Pitman was right-hander Daniel Mazon, who tossed four innings while surrendering three runs. The senior kept the Mustangs scoreless for the first two innings, while also helping his own cause at the plate. As the Pride’s leadoff hitter, he scored the first run of the ballgame after reaching on an infield single and rounding the bases on a two-run double off the bat of sophomore Nolan Walker. In the second inning, Mazon brought in junior Nathan Cervantes on a sacrifice fly before scoring again off an RBI double by senior Alejandro Trujillo — the first of two RBI knocks by the catcher.
The Mustangs scored three runs off of just one hit against Mazon in the third inning as two batters reached on wild pitches, another was struck by a pitch and the Pitman defense committed a pair of errors.
Pitman was able to get two runs back in the fourth inning, but the Oakdale avalanche began once the Pride bullpen was called upon, exploding for 13 runs in the inning to force a mercy-rule ending. The Pride’s bullpen allowed seven hits, four walks, two wild pitches and an balk in the inning. Pitman head coach Andy Walker won’t dwell on the one bad inning, though.
“We're a really good baseball team,” Walker said. “We played scrimmages against two really good teams in Franklin Elk Grove and Manteca High, and we competed and held our own against those teams. We did very well against El Capitan (3-2 win on March 4) and Buhach Colony (10-0 win on March 1). Today, we played five innings and we won four today, so that one inning is not going to define us.
“Obviously, it's a bad feeling and not how you want to end the game, but we saw that we're capable of being a very good baseball team when we throw strikes and play good defense. We have a lot of good baseball players who are attentive and willing to learn,” the sixth-year coach said of his team that includes first-time varsity starters across the board. “I think they're going to be very competitive this year. We're excited for what we have and where we're headed with them.”
Across town at Mark de la Motte Field at the campus of Turlock High, the Bulldog bats went cold against the Lodi pitching tandem of Brent Godina and Andrew Fichtner. Turlock was only able to string together two hits off the bats of juniors Josh Ramirez and Andrew Sevilla.
Controlling the strike zone was a bit of an issue for the Lodi pitchers, though, as they combined to hit four Bulldogs with pitches and allowed three walks. Nevertheless, four strikeouts by Godina and five by Fichtner helped strand six runners on base.
The loss dropped the Bulldogs to 3-1. Meanwhile, the Pride dropped to 2-1.
Pitman will try to bounce back Tuesday when they host Clovis East at 4 p.m.
Turlock had a much quicker turnaround time as they traveled to Modesto on Friday for the start of the annual March Madness preseason tournament. The Bulldogs played to a 3-1 loss to the Central Catholic Raiders in the morning game before defeating the Enochs Eagles 15-3 in the afternoon slot. They are slated to face Tokay (Lodi) at 10 a.m. today in the consolation championship at Central Catholic High School. A full recap of Turlock’s tournament results will be available in the next Journal.