Sunshine was what the fandom desired on a Saturday at Blair Field. The buckets of rain that flattened everybody on Friday was replaced by cool but pleasant weather on Saturday. For UCSB, riding high this season, it was a match with traditional power Long Beach. You could almost see the blood rushing into the players’ brains, except that for shortstop Matt Duffy is was blood in the dugout.
Just before 1:00pm, Duffy was pumped and well, jumped up and cracked his noggin on the steel beam. Stan Metzger said it was a new stat, HBD, hit by Dugout. Trainer Katie Davis did the concussion test and Matt was rushed off to one of those emergency clinics, got everybody worried (former coach Mike Weathers texted a pal to see what was up) but talked his way back to Blair, got another concussion exam by the training staff, and reappeared as a pinch hitter getting a walk late in the game.
When the dust settled, the sixth consecutive victory was locked up and the Dirtbags exhaled sitting in a first place tie with CSUF. And now the sweeping tale of triumph.
Game one belonged to the Beach, nice news for a club that hasn’t strung many wins together. The W was number four in a row for the Dirtbags and win came over the Big West ERA leader, Andrew Vazquez, who was nails early, collecting eight outs before giving up a hit.
The old man, Brennan Metzger, and the young man, freshman Richard Prigatano, each had a pair of RBI as the Dirtbags scored four earned runs on the way to the 6-3. That improved the Long BeachState record to14-17, 5-2. The total was six runs on nine hits and a rally from a 2-0 deficit. The W went to Matt Anderson who had just enough poise and control in his six innings (well he did walk five) but kept the Dirtbags in the game until the offense finally picked him up in the bottom of the sixth. The SID staff saw it this way.
“Jeff McNeil and Ino Patron led off the inning with back-to-back hits, and the Juan Avila walked to load the bases for Long Beach State. Metzger then came up with the first RBI of the game for the Dirtbags on a fly ball to deep center field, and then with runners on the corners, Prigatano singled to bring home one more for the Dirtbags. Freshman Josh Guerra then singled to right, and in a gamble, rounded first hard with no one covering the base. Drawing a throw, Prigatano scored from first on the gambit, and Guerra reached second to make the score 4-2 in favor of the Dirtbags. Prigatano and Metzger struck again with one more RBI each to give the Dirtbags a 6-2 lead after the seventh inning, and Kyle Friedrichs held off the Gauchos in the ninth with a 6-3 lead to collect his fourth save of the season.”
So a sorta normal afternoon and a nice break from the three hours of baseball (a lot of folks worked their way to the big screens of the Beach Club) so why not get game two underway. This time the usually unflappable Ryan Strufing, proved well, I guess, flappable. In his four innings he had walked five, and Coach Buckley had a gut feeling that he didn’t have the luxury of wasted outs. It was a curious moment for sure when you pull an uninjured starter who had four no hit innings but remember those five walks and one hit batter. Troubled reliever Eddie Magallon came in but got made a splendid flip of a grounder to stop the bleeding. The game itself made most of the fandom bleed as the contest became the fourth-longest contest for Long Beach State since 1989. 14 innings before a 5-4 victory in a mere 5 hours and 13 minutes.
Again we turn the telling of the tale to the SIDs. “Magallon retired the sixth in order as the Dirtbags trailed 1-0 despite throwing six no-hit innings. Long Beach State evened up the score in the bottom half, after Richard Prigatano led off the inning with a double. Prigatano was caught in a rundown trying to score, but Jeff McNeil advanced to second, and scored on an RBI single from Ino Patron to tie the game at one.
Joey Wallace started off the seventh inning with the Gauchos first hit, and after an error on a sacrifice, the Gauchos had runners on first and second. The Dirtbags cut down the lead runner on a second bunt attempt, but the Gauchos would score an unearned run on a single from Brett Vertigan to take a 2-1 lead.
Brennan Metzger led off the bottom of the seventh with a walk, and after a fielder’s choice, a single put two runners on and ended the day of Austin Pettibone, who went 6.2 innings for the Gauchos, allowing five hits. Josh Guerra came on as a pinch hitter, and singled to tie the game at 2-2. Various rallies were squashed over the next two innings, sending the game to extra innings, as the Gauchos would strand 13 and Long Beach State would leave 15 runners in the game.
That theme would continue in the extra frames as well. Jon Maciel struck out Greg Mahle to end the top of the tenth inning with two runners in scoring position, while the Dirtbags threatened with two singles to start the inning. Johnny Bekakis was unable to lay down a bunt, eventually striking out, and after a walk loaded the bases, a strikeout and a flyout ended the inning.
UCSB took the lead again in the 12th inning. Brett Vertigan started the inning with a single, and after a sacrifice, a walk put two runners on. Josh Frye came on for the Dirtbags, the sixth pitcher for LBSU, and struck out Ryan Palermo for the second out, but after an intentional walk to load the bases, a ball from Marc Venning clipped off the top of Avila’s glove into the outfield, allowing two runs to score.
Down two, Long Beach State had a popup to start the bottom of the 12th, but Matt Duffy drew a walk, and Patron tripled to cut the Gaucho lead to one. Juan Avila was hit by a pitch to put runners on the corners, but Metzger struck out for the second out of the inning. Down to his last strike, Bekakis hit a squib single that landed in no man’s land in the infield, and beat the throw by a step as the Dirtbags tied the game.
A double play got the Dirtbags out of the top of the 14th after another error, and the game finally ended in the bottom half of that inning in another novel way. Duffy walked again to start the inning, and the Gauchos tried to get the lead runner on Patron’s sacrifice, but Duffy was safe under a high throw to put two runners on. A failed pick sent both runners over one base on the error, and then Avila and Bekakis were both plunked to end the game. The win was the first in extra innings for the Dirtbags in 2012.”
That hard earned win would be the pattern for game three and that hard to find Big West Conference sweep, the first broom work by the 49ers since the 2009 season, and the first against UCSB at Blair since 1998.
The pitching rich Niners went to their ace in senior Shawn Stuart who mixed good control (just one walk) with seven strikeouts over seven innings and only one run on four hits. His pen mates Friedrichs and Hunt cleaned up with no walks and scattered 4 UCSB hits and the sweep was in the books.
A pair of grizzled Niner vets, the now repaired junior Matt Duffy (2-for-3) and the energizer bunny Brennan Metzger (two scores) and a circus catches when they mattered made it all work. Shaun was perfect until a freaky grounder in the fifth hit the third base bag and popped into no-man’s land but no Gaucho would score until single runs in innings 6, 8 and 9.
For the Beach Metzger worked a leadoff walk, McNeil got a free pass as well and a single from Richard Prigatano gave LB the lead. Buck and his bench then got tricky with a double steal which moved McNeil and Prigatano into scoring position for a sac fly and a Dirtbag 2-0 lead. In the sixth a single and a sac upped the Niner total to three and then the pen men held the visitors off. With the win, the Dirtbags upped their record to 16-17 (7-2 in BWC) The Gauchos basically lost any chance for an at large bid and fell to 17-17 and 4-5 after starting the weekend tied with Long Beach State. Next up at Blair is a critical series with UC Irvine, Friday through Sunday.