Brevin Welch, Los Banos baseball ride emotional final stretch to victory

Brevin Welch recorded the final strikeout, stepped off the mound and pointed toward the heavens.

The gesture had a little extra meaning for the senior Wednesday night. Welch wasn’t even certain if he’d play for the Los Banos baseball team after learning that his aunt had died Tuesday night.

It was an emotional evening, made more so by Welch giving up the go-ahead runs to Livingston in the bottom of the sixth inning. He walked off the field in tears, just to have the emotional pendulum swing the other way in the next half inning. The Wolves imploded defensively, committing five errors in the seventh and allowing the Tigers to plate three runs with Welch providing the game-winner in a 5-4 come-from-behind victory.

“My head was kind of all over the place with learning last night that one of my family members had passed,” said Welch, who earned the win. “The bottom of the sixth was pretty rough. My arm felt good, but they put some good swings on me. I knew we still had one more ups, though, and I never lost faith in my teammates to pick me up.”

Livingston (10-7, 2-3 Western Athletic Conference) had more than a little hand in that.

After trailing for most of the night, a Danny Menchaca (2 for 3, double and two runs) home run tied the game for the Wolves at 2-2 in the fifth inning.

Matt Winton’s squad went ahead in the next inning using a CJ Avila single, Eddie Avila double and Kyle Mull walk to load the bases on Welch with no outs. Tony Gomez came off the bench to deliver an RBI single and Josh Penrod followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 4-2 Livingston.

It looked like more than enough support for Mull, who had limited the potent LB offense to two hits while striking out eight entering the seventh inning and had set down seven in a row. But once the errors started, they became more infectious than the plague.

“There’s been a couple times where we’ve rallied in the bottom of the inning like that and then closed the door in the next half inning, so we felt comfortable,” Winton said. “Some bad defensive innings like that have reared their ugly head before, which is a shame, because I felt like Mull was very deserving of a W.”

A two-base throwing error and a single put the Tigers (11-5-1, 5-2 WAC) in business to start the seventh.

Mull got a fly ball to center and should have had a second out on a botched ground ball to short that scored a run.

Welch then beat out what would have been a game-ending double play to drive in a run and tie the game. Two batters later, Welch stole third base and came home with the winning run when the catcher’s throw kicked into left field.

This story was originally published April 15, 2015 at 10:46 PM with the headline "Brevin Welch, Los Banos baseball ride emotional final stretch to victory."