Los Banos freshmen shine in varsity baseball debut

Pat Fuentes likes the pieces he has.

The Los Banos High School baseball team returns a number of position players from last year’s squad, which fell one win shy of playing for a Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV title. The one real question mark is starting pitching, with almost no experience beyond senior Josh Gould.

Kody Cardoza certainly made a compelling argument for joining that conversation against Buhach Colony on Friday afternoon. The freshman was called up the night before and came on to toss five innings of relief. He allowed one unearned run and no hits, earning his first varsity win in a 2-1, eight-inning victory over the Thunder.

“It was impressive,” Fuentes said. “He did what we asked of him when we called him up last night. He got in a couple tough spots and fought his way out of them. Then the other freshman we called up (Trent Mallonee) picks up three hits and drives in the winning run.

“You bring some babies up and they put themselves in good position to not go back down.”

Gould got the start for the Tigers, but uncharacteristically struggled with his command.

He found himself in trouble immediately, surrendering a leadoff walk to Mike Casso and then an opposite-field double to Nick Singer. Another walk loaded the bases for Kory Woods with no outs in the first. Woods unloaded on a line drive, but right into the glove of shortstop Josh Gomes. Gomes flipped to second for a double play, and Gould got out of the inning unscathed with a groundout.

It was that kind of afternoon for Buhach Colony (0-3), which has mustered just two runs in three games to open the year.

While Gould gutted out zeros for LB (3-2), a very sharp Casso answered him pitch-for-pitch through four innings. The junior had one unearned run on four hits while striking out five in 5 1/3 innings.

His lone blemish came in the fifth inning, when a James Bostick leadoff single kicked past the left fielder and put a runner in scoring position with no outs. A sacrifice bunt and Vince Alvarez sacrifice fly later, Los Banos had a 1-0 lead.

Buhach answered in the bottom of the sixth when a leadoff walk and an error put two on with no outs. Cardoza was called for a balk, moving both runners up and allowing the tying run to come home on a Singer ground out. Surrendering his first run didn’t seem to phase Cardoza. The freshman answered with a strikeout and fly ball to center to keep the game tied.

“I was pretty nervous the first few innings, but I settled down,” Cardoza said. “I knew we were OK when we tied the game. I did my best to keep my composure. I just had to have faith in my defense to pick me up and get us out of it.”

The score remained 1-1 until the eighth, when a little bit of controversy took over. Julien Ceja led the inning off with a single and then stole second. Catcher Logan Coe’s throw beat the runner to the bag easily, but the ump ruled that the Thunder missed the tag. It proved big as Mallonee singled him in two pitches later.

The Thunder threatened to answer in the bottom half of the inning as Cardoza suddenly struggled with his command, issuing back-to-back one-out walks. He then induced a ground ball to short by Singer. LB got the out at second, but Singer beat the throw to first. He was called out, however, for interference Casso’s slide into second, ending the game.

“That’s two tough calls against us in the eighth inning, but that’s baseball,” BC coach Greg Wakefield said. “I thought they did a great job competing through the whole game, and put themselves into position to get those calls. We did a great job competing, too; we just couldn’t produce the big hit.

“They had a few more quality at-bats than we did, and we weren’t as effective with our pitches in big spots as they were. A couple 0-2 pitches caught way too much of the zone. That’s the difference in the game.”

This story was originally published March 18, 2016 at 8:22 PM with the headline "Los Banos freshmen shine in varsity baseball debut."