Merced baseball uses patient approach in win over Golden Valley

Count leverage is one of baseball’s less exciting terms.

Still, it’s tough to produce consistently good offense when a team doesn’t emphasize it. With that in mind, Merced High School coach Justin Parle said he worked with his players on their patience and pitch identification in the offseason. Merced demonstrated the fruits of the labor Tuesday afternoon, drawing eight walks and pounding 10 hits to roll crosstown rival Golden Valley 10-0 in five innings.

Though, admittedly, Golden Valley right-hander Caleb Lopez struggled with his command from the outset, walking four in the first inning, and wasn’t particularly close when he missed. As a result, the Bears were constantly ahead in the count and took advantage when Lopez found the strike zone.

“I felt like we stayed pretty patient against him for the most part,” Parle said. “We took our walks when they were there and did a pretty good job of identifying pitches to hit. I wasn’t pleased with every single at-bat, but overall, I thought we went up there with a good approach.

“We weren’t really focused on bouncing back from the Turlock series. I’m a big fan of focusing on the present. We can only control what we can control, and the guys did a good job of coming out ready to play.”

Merced (12-10, 4-6 Central California Conference) jumped on Golden Valley (4-17, 3-7) with two runs in the first inning.

It could have been worse, but Lopez, a senior, battled back and limited the damage, yielding a run on a wild pitch and a Trevor Phillips sacrifice fly. Cougars coach Scott Solis thought escaping the big inning could prove critical.

“I thought he was going to settle in after that,” Solis said. “I thought he’d find a rhythm and start competing for us. It’s a shame, because when he’s on and throwing strikes, he does really well.

“Then, you fall behind and guys try to do a little too much at the plate to get some runs back. We came in swinging some pretty good bats. I think today was more of an aberration. We’ll have a good practice (Wednesday) and come back Thursday ready to play.”

Merced tacked on a run in the third inning and broke open the game with a six-run fourth.

Jacob Alarcon (2 for 2, three runs) tripled in Josh May to make it 4-0. Brent Brewer squeezed home Alarcon and beat the throw to first. Brewer scored on a Phillips single, and Bryce West doubled home Phillips. The Bears added run-scoring singles by Tim Zaragoza and Francisco Salazar. Merced sent 11 batters to the plate in the fourth, and seven players produced hits.

“Honestly, it was a little tough staying patient,” Alarcon said. “He walked me my first two times up, so I was getting a little anxious to swing the bat. We knew we came in having our (butts) swept last week, so we needed to come out with a lot of energy and put pressure on them. I thought we did a good job of that.”

It was more than enough run support for Merced starter Kyle Moniz. The senior scattered three hits and struck out three in five innings to earn the shutout.

This story was originally published April 26, 2016 at 9:22 PM with the headline "Merced baseball uses patient approach in win over Golden Valley."