Pilots, Panners and Fire well Arm-ed: Preseason Wrap 3/27/10 - 4/3/10

Mike McCarthy wrote his name into the history
books by throwing CS Bakersfield's first ever CG
Shutout. Photo: Goldpanners.com

Last week the bats dominated while the pitchers struggled a little bit, but this week the arms have reasserted themselves and we've got a good selection of ABL recruits who put up good pitching eprformances.

The week's great pitching effort was spearheaded by Goldpanners recruit Mike McCarthy who made history by throwing Cal State Bakersfield's first-ever complete game shutout. Over the course of the nine-inning battle he gave up eight hits and three walks but didn't let any of those runners score.

While McCarthy's game might have been more spectacular, the Pilots have someone who has been consistently rock-solid so far this year. Ben Mount threw six strong innings for Southern Cal this Friday, surrendering only four hits and a walk, and allowing only two runners to score (and only one earned at that). Mount improved his record to 3-1 while tacking on seven more strikeouts. Thus far he's proven to be the staff ace of the USC squad, compiling a 3.28 ERA and holding opposing batters to an average of .237.



The Panners & the Pilots have the starters, but the Fire have the Firemen of Fresno. A pair of AIA recruits had solid relief appearances on the mound this week. On Friday David Hawes of Fresno Pacific crafted two hitless/scoreless, while Eugene Escat of Fresno State threw two perfect. Escat is now 3-0 1.72 ERA in 15.2 innings of relief, containing opposing batters' average to just .226.


JT Chargois (Panners) continued his trend of toying with opposing batters, letting them on base only to shut them down. In a 1.1 inning performance for Rice on Tuesday he gave up two hits and a walk, but allowed none of them to cross the plate. That brings his ERA all the way down to an even 1.00 despite letting hitters knock him around to the tune of .324. The question on my mind is, is Chargois just lucky, or does he work better with his back against the wall? Whatever the case, it's obvious that he doesn't crack under pressure.

ABL recruits put up some solid pitching games this week, but what about the bats? We all know there are some big lumberjacks coming up this summer. Let's catch up with them, starting with a player we've been following for a while. 

Second-year Bucs OF Bret Atwood has finally seen his hitting streak come to a halt. Atwood went 0-for-4 last Tuesday, which snapped his hitting streak at 16 games. Kind of a bummer that he couldn't keep it going for a while longer, but now that it's over we can take a step back and look at the numbers he's put up so far this season: he's leading Texas State in avg (.377), steals (6) and hits (43). That's not too shabby. The streak was fun but with the type of production he puts up I'm sure we can let one bad day slide.

And, for what it's worth, the day before Bret posted 2 hits and a walk on 3 AB, which resulted in a pair of runs and an RBI.

There were a coupe of homer-fests this week, and a pair of Alaska recruits took part: Dusty Robinson of the Glacier Pilots was 3/3 with four runs and an RBI on Saturday, and served as the two-punch in a back-to-back homer combo for Fresno State. His solo funk blast would serve as the game-tying run in the team's eventual win. That same day, Jesse Sirkoski (Panners) thought he would get in on the action and drilled a towering two-run shot to contribute to John's Hopkins' nine-homer doubleheader.

Finally, one of the more interesting stat lines I came across this week came from Bucs catcher Coley Crank out of Michigan. It seems that even when he's not hitting, he's contributing, and on Tuesday he might as well have left his bat in the dugout. Crank walked three times and scored on each of them. I guess it doesn't matter how you get the job done as long as you do it, right?

There were a bunch of other great offensive performances this week, so the rest I will just recap briefly...

March 28: Brian Bello (Bucs) -- 3 for 5 with 4 RBI and a run

March 30: Edgar Molina (Panners) -- 3 for 4 with 3 RBI and a Run...Trey Wimmer (Fire) -- 3 for 3 with 5 RBI, 2R and 1BB...Michael Robertson (Fire) -- 3 for 4 with 3 Runs

March 31: Martin Medina (Panners) -- 4/6 with 4 RBI and a run


April 2: Brian Bello (Bucs) -- 3 for 3 in game 1, 2 for 3 with 4RBI and a Run in game 2.

April 3: Dominic Piazza (Bucs) -- 3 for 4 with a Run