Gauchos plead the fifth in opener

The Saddleback baseball team opened the 2019 campaign with a 10-4 win at San Diego City College on Friday in San Diego.  The Gauchos scored eight runs in the fifth inning to open the season on a high note as the game was called due to darkness in the bottom half of the eighth inning.

Saddleback was frustrated early on, getting two runners on base in each of the first three innings but failing to score.  Meanwhile, San Diego City scraped across solo runs in the second and fourth innings in taking a 2-0 lead.

Saddleback finally woke up in the fifth inning, and they did it all with two outs.  After the first two batters were retired, the Gauchos sent 10 batters to the plate as San Diego City pitchers lost their location of the strike zone.  Saddleback had four walks and a hit batsman in the inning, taking full advantage of the situation with some timely hitting.    As if that wasn't bad enough for the Knights, they also committed an error and had a wild pitch in the inning, using three pitchers in the frame.  Saddleback blew the game wide open with three straight hits, the biggest of which was a two-run triple by Riley Kasper to give the Gauchos a 7-2 lead.

Saddleback used four different pitchers on opening day as Nick Hernandez got the start and pitched three solid innings before giving way to the bullpen.  Jacob Frankel and Ethan Holt both pitched one inning of work before handing the ball over to Curren Larson, who pitched 2.2 innings before the game was called due to darkness.  Frankel was credited with the win despite pitching just one inning of work.

Kasper finished 2-for-4 with three RBI and a walk.  Demitri Colacchio finished 2-for-3 with two RBI.

Saddleback will host San Diego City on Saturday at 1:00 PM.