A blind person could have told you the pitchers duel was on at Blair Field yesterday afternoon.  With Millikan’s Josh Frye and Cabrillo’s Ramiro Rosalez on the mound, the pop of the catcher’s mitt was loud and crisp, and the ping off the bats was few and far between.  Ultimately, when they Rams had a chance to score they pushed across two, and when the Jaguars had a chance they only managed one as Millikan survived the scare with a 2-1 victory.

Frye continued to dominate, going the distance and scattering three hits while striking out six.  The senior retired eight in a row to start and finish the game and only fell behind five hitters all afternoon.  Of those five batters, only one reached base.

Rosalez was just as impressive, throwing three pitches for strikes while giving up just four hits.  An infield single in the third inning was the final hit for the Rams as the senior retired the final ten hitters he faced (six ground outs, four fly outs).

“He’s worked his butt off,” said Cabrillo head coach Erick Bryant of his ace pitcher who is coming off the disabled list.  Rosalez was sidelined with a shoulder injury during the first game between these two teams, and he returned for few innings last week against Compton.  “We weren’t going to let him go seven, but he was eager and had control of all his pitches… he wanted seven, and we gave it to him… with him on the mound we’re a different team, we just came up a little short.  With teams in the Moore League like Millikan you can’t give them second opportunities.”

A few Jaguar mistakes put Rams in scoring position early, but the damage was done in the second inning when Adam Annella led off with a single to left field.  The senior moved to third on a wild pitch and a four-pitch walk to Josh Valdovinos and then scored on a sacrifice bunt by Jackson Woodbury.  Valdovinos would score two batters later with two outs on a single by Avery Flores.

With Frye still working the no-hitter in the fourth inning, Cabrillo got back in it as Louie Terrazas placed a perfect bunt up the first baseline for the infield hit.  He moved to second on an error, and scored from there two batters later when Christopher Salinas put it through the left side.

Rosalez went to work with the score 2-1 and retired those 10 batters in a row, but Frye had the defense behind him necessary to hold on for the win.  Millikan turned the 6-4-3 double play to get out of the fourth, and in the top of the seventh Salinas stroked one up the middle and moved to second on the sacrifice.  But the Rams were in the “no doubles” defense in the outfield, and Paul Slater and Tanner Lowrey tracked down two hard hit balls for the final outs.

“Frye had great stuff, and thank goodness for that,” said Millikan head coach Scott Glasser.  “Cabrillo played well, they had a plan and played some small ball and (Rosalez) was impressive, he could start for any team in the Moore League… but I hope this is a wake up call for this team.  We can’t lean on Frye all the time and assume that he’s only going to give up one or no runs… it’s a maturity thing, we’ve got to come to every game with the same intensity.” 

With the win Millikan improves to 7-3 in the Moore League and will play Compton on Friday.  Cabrillo falls to 2-8 and will see Jordan on Friday.

Post game quotes gathered by Millikan student/journalist Jordan Sanders:

Lowrey on the game-ending catch: “I had to run like heck, I was ready for it and I didn’t give up on it and we got the result we wanted.”

Frye on his performance: “I did what I was told to do, and limit them as much as possible… We needed to score more runs than this, but it’s a team win I’ll take.”