Great Pitching Forces Outcome To Be Decided In The Seventh

On a cool afternoon in West Kendall, pitching proved to be the strength for both teams. The Archbishop Carroll Bulldogs and the Mater Lakes Bears played an exciting preseason game that finished 2-1 in favor of the Bears.

For the first four and a half innings, the game was a pitchers’ duel. Mater Lakes pitcher Andrew De la Torre pitched a complete game, giving up two hits.

“His control is great,” Mater Lakes coach Cesar Temes said. “His best pitch is his change-up, and he did a good job keeping hitters off balance.”

Archbishop Carroll’s Sandro Gordillo put on quite a performance as well, matching his counterpart pitch for pitch throughout the game.

“Sandro is a good finesse pitcher,” Carroll coach Omar Falcon said. “He does a good job painting the corners, and his ball tends to move a lot.”

It wasn’t until the bottom half of the fifth inning that either team was able to manufacture a run. The inning started with Bears first baseman Justin Gil drawing a walk after a long, hard-fought at-bat. Gil advanced to second base on a passed ball before right fielder Alex Lima found a hole in the infield just out of the reach of the Archbishop Carroll shortstop.

With a man on first and second with no outs, Temes called for a sacrifice bunt, and it work out even better than expected. The throw over to first was just too wide and pulled Carroll second baseman just off the base, making the bases loaded with no outs. The Bears’ newest player, Abraham Ortega, came up big, hitting a deep sacrifice fly to bring in a run and give the Bears a 1-0 lead. Ortega just recently moved from Puerto Rico and is getting used to his new school and teammates. Sandro Gordillo struck out the next two and get out of the jam.

Going in to the top of the seventh inning, the Bulldogs had a meeting just outside the dugout to make sure the players understood this was their final chance.

“I have a team captain and he takes care of all that,” Falcon said. “I just made sure he told the guys to have quality at-bats and refuse to fail.”

The Bulldogs got right back into the game after they were able to make good contact and get the ball in play. Mater Lakes committed three errors in the inning, and the Bulldogs took advantage as Travis Luke came around to tie it at 1.

Falcon then called for a squeeze play with the bases loaded and one out. The batter was unable to make contact as the pitch was way out of the strike zone, and Mater Lakes picked off Dennis Rivadeneira on his attempt to steal home.

“It was a situation that we have been working on,” Falcon said. “I wanted to work on it now in the preseason, so when we need it in about a month, we can execute it.”

The Bulldogs sent out pitcher Oscar Gordillo to the mound for the seventh inning. The Bears showed their patience, when Alex Lima drew a walk. Anthony Rondon came up with a big line-drive single to the right-field corner that advanced Lima to third base. Again, Ortega made good contact and got the game winning RBI.

“I was really happy with him and how he came out in his first game and wasn’t nervous at all,” Temes said.

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