The dry summer heat of the Inland Valley was replaced with an uncommon layer of humidity on Saturday. On this uncharacteristic summer day, the Inland Valley Pirates hosted a doubleheader against the San Diego Wave at Azusa Pacific University.
The Wave took two of the first three games in the series earlier in the week in Escondido, but the Pirates had the opportunity to take the series if they won both games on Saturday.
Inland Valley quickly evened up the series with a quick, clean, 3-0 victory.
Starting pitcher Alex Chavez led the way, pitching six no-hit innings. Chavez has been the Pirates’ best pitcher this season and today was his best outing.
Chavez would have been perfect through six innings, but the Inland Valley defense made three errors behind him. Even with shaky defense early, Chavez mowed through Wave hitters, striking out eight.
Chavez did not surrender a baserunner of his own until the top of the seventh inning when he mercifully gave San Diego a leadoff walk. With his pitch count rising, Chavez was taken out of the game and replaced by lefty Chris Gonzales.
Gonzales picked up right where Chavez left off, pitching three scoreless innings, only allowing one baserunner, and striking out three.
On offense, Inland Valley got started early with a strong three-run first inning.
The Pirates loaded the bases before the Wave could even get an out. After scoring one run on a passed ball, Evan Evitia came up and walloped a double to left field to score the other baserunners.
After the exciting first inning, Inland Valley’s hitters were shut out. The lineup found a few more hits and drew another walk, but they could not get anything going.
The excellent pitching from the second inning on, allowed the game to breeze by in an hour and 58 minutes — the second sub-two-hour contest of the Pirates season.
The rubber match 45 minutes later would be much longer and include much more action.
In the first, the Wave quickly scored their first run of the day and then poured another three on. Despite the rough patch, Inland Valley pitching returned to its previous form, blanking the Wave over the next three innings.
The Pirates got one run back a couple innings later from a Garrett Patterson RBI to bring the score to 4-1.
Inland Valley finally bent in the fifth and gave up three runs in a strenuous inning, putting San Diego up six.
The Pirates refused to give up though and they loaded the bases for leadoff hitter and star shortstop Isaiah Walz.
In his best moment of the season, the incredible Walz blasted a grand slam through the left field netting and off an APU administrative building.
After Walz’s heroics, there was an aura of confidence in the Inland Valley dugout that a comeback was more than possible.
On defense though, the Pirates gave up another run. Out of the eight runs given up, only three of them were earned due to six errors in the field.
In the last inning, Walz got on again and Patterson subsequently hit a single to bring the tying run to the plate. Walz advanced to third on a line drive to right, then scored on a fielder’s choice.
Unfortunately for the Inland Valley, the Wave combatted the late comeback and held on for an 8-6 win sealing their series victory.
All six of the Pirates’ runs were earned.
The Pirates have one more league game on Tuesday against the Legends at 4 PM at Cal Poly Pomona’s Scolinos Field.
Inland Valley Baseball Association 