Merced College bats overcome poor pitching and sloppy defense

As Chris Pedretti headed over for his traditional post-game hug with his wife, he quipped, “That’s Blue Devil baseball.”

Pedretti’s Merced College program is routinely among Northern California’s top squads behind a foundation of quality pitching and sound defense. The Blue Devils struggled in both areas for stretches on Tuesday afternoon.

There were no struggles at the plate, however, and the offense was able to pick up the rest of the team. David Vidauri’s two-out, run-scoring single in the bottom of the eighth inning proved the difference as the Blue Devils outlasted Mission College 15-11 in a wild three-and-a-half hour tilt at Blue Devil Field.

“We made some remarkable plays, and then couldn’t execute the routine ones,” Pedretti said. “We couldn’t consistently find the strike zone, and kept letting them right back in every time we got a lead. The offense came through for us, but you can’t count on putting up 15 runs every time out.

“We’ve just lacked consistency through the first four games.”

The Blue Devils (2-2) never trailed in the game, but could never seem to get a comfortable lead, either.

Despite scoring in six of its eight at-bats and pounding out 17 hits, MC could not get a shutdown inning. Mission (2-2) answered five different times with at least one run in the next half inning following a Blue Devil score. Seven walks, one hit batsman and five MC errors contributed to that.

“That’s not very good,” said shortstop Adam Nascimento, who went 3 for 4 with a home run, double and three RBIs. “We couldn’t get a single shutdown inning until the ninth. I’ve never seen that before.

“I personally wasn’t having a good defensive game, but I was determined to at least create more runs at the plate than I gave up.”

The Blue Devils needed every one as failing to break the game open finally bit them in the eighth.

The Saints used two walks and an error from the bottom of the order to push across a run with no outs, and Adam Rios tied the game with a two-run single. Relief pitcher Trevor Chaney was able to strand him at third and at least preserve the tie.

Curtis Kellogg (2 for 4, 2 runs, 3 RBIs) opened the bottom half of the eighth with a single and moved into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt. Vidauri stepped to the plate with two on and two out, working himself a full count. He went opposite field with a single to right to make it 12-11. MC would add a run on a wild pitch and Nascimento would put the game away with a two-run home run to left.

“To be honest, I was hoping he would throw me another ball,” Vidauri said. “I started out 3 and 0 and took a couple good swings at some fastballs. He threw me one more and I was able to just go with it.”

Nothing was easy for MC, however, as Mission got two aboard in the ninth. Noah Gapp was called upon to record the final two outs, earning his first save.

This story was originally published February 3, 2015 at 11:09 PM with the headline "Merced College bats overcome poor pitching and sloppy defense."