Columbus’ Vinson and Hialeah’s Nestor Cortez Throw Gems, Get No-Decisions

HSBN Miami’s #1 Columbus Explorers headed to Earnest Graham Park to take on the #2 Hialeah T-Breds in a showcase of elite teams, elite coaching, and on this night, elite pitching in a semifinal of the Greater Miami Athletic Conference tournament. Columbus’ Michael Vinson pitched his best game of the season, throwing seven strong innings of shutout ball, striking out five and allowing only three hits. But Hialeah junior Nestor Cortez pitched just as well, throwing seven innings, allowing no runs and only one hit, while striking out eight and walking just one as Columbus went on to win 5-0.

It appeared that both pitchers could have thrown another five innings without allowing a run, but alas, the eighth inning came and arms needed to be preserved for the district tournaments that start next week for both teams.

Cortez went out to the mound to start the eighth after striking out the meat of Columbus’ order in the seventh – the second time in the game he struck out the side – but Hialeah head coach Michael Fulton pulled him back in before the inning began.

“If this were a regional final, Nestor would have stayed in the game,” Fulton said, “but for Hialeah, our goal of this season was not to win the GMAC tournament, that hasn’t been our goal in the history of Hialeah.”

With Cortez’ pitch count running into the low 90s, Fulton wasn’t about to risk pushing his star player further the week before districts.

Fulton emphasized that his team’s season-long goals were to first get the number one seed in the district, which it already has achieved, then to win the district title, then to win the regional final, and then of course, to win the state title. So although it was an upsetting loss for his team, it is not one that will deter the T-Breds from achieving their season-long objectives.

All that said, it was not as if Hialeah was throwing in the towel by not allowing Cortez to pitch the eighth as their relief pitcher came in and recorded a quick pop-out and then a strikeout. With two outs and the bottom of the order up, it looked as if the game was headed to the bottom of the eighth still tied at zero, but that’s when head coach for Columbus, Joe Weber, went to his bench.

First he brought in Ryan Alvarez, who hit an innocent-enough-looking single to left. Weber pinch-ran for Alvarez and brought in another pinch-hitter, Nelson Mompierre, who singled through the right side. A wild pitch allowed pinch-runner Mike Pino to get to third, and then Weber brought in the team’s third pinch-hitter in a row. This time it was Nick Reyes, who proceeded to get the game-winning double that knocked in both runners. A new pitcher was brought in and leadoff batter Laz Rivera quickly doubled off him, driving in the third run of the inning. Then Frank Navarette singled, and Danny Lynch, Columbus’ leading hitter who bats in the three hole, knocked in two more runs with the Explorers’ third double of the inning.

Going into the bottom of the seventh, the game was tied 0-0. Going into the bottom of the eighth, Columbus was up 5-0.

“You can never have enough depth,” Weber said of the pinch-hitting marathon that won the game for his team. “We knew they were throwing a lefty tonight, so we tried to match-up most of our hitters, but once they changed, we changed, too, and being able to adapt like that is a big plus for us.”

There was a point in the fifth when it looked as if Hialeah was going to take the first lead of the game. Lian Roque led off the inning with a double, only the second hit of the game off Vinson. Then Marcos Lozado put down a sacrifice bunt and the throw to first got by the covering second baseman, which put runners on second and third with no outs. With Cortez pitching a masterpiece, coach Fulton knew he would probably only need one run to win the game, so he put on a squeeze play, but the batter missed the bunt and Roque was thrown out at third.

“We’ve executed that play four times this year, and each time we’ve been successful with it. We practice it everyday, we feel confident in it, and it was one of the moments where the first time we didn’t execute it, it came back to hurt us, but I am not second-guessing that decision.”

Vinson was confident once he got out of that fifth-inning jam, his team would win the game.

“I had to bear down and get out of that,” Vinson said. “I knew if we got out of that, we would be able to score some runs. We know at any point we have a chance to win the game, and I did what I had to do to keep us in it.”

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