Los Angeles, California – Hugo Urista
The So Cal Shepherds had their very first regular season game in the Sunset League where they faced the Ventura County Pirates. After a very close game, the Pirates came out the victors and gave the Sheps their first loss of the season with a score of 2-4.
Max Montplaisir started the game dominating through 4.2 innings, and striking out 2. Throughout the first inning, he found himself with bases loaded, but with a great defensive team behind him, they managed to get him 2 outs while he struck out the last batter. By the middle of the fourth he managed to only allow 3 runs on 5 hits, 2 by HBP when bases were loaded. The bullpen shined as Samuel Murphy came in for Max and pitched a total of 3.1 innings striking out 3 batters with 0 earned runs on 2 hits. Sam kept the Pirates from extending their lead as he closed the game.
When it came to offense, the Sheps had a hard time getting their rhythm as they left many runners on base through several innings. The opposing pitcher, Joel Tornero walked several Sheps leading to a bases loaded situation for the first couple of innings. The Sheps were slow to capitalize and only got 4 hits through 9 innings. While the offense was struggling, players like Connor Aldrich led the team going 2 for 4 with a single, a double, and an RBI. If we can take anything from this loss, is that the Sheps have improved tremendously when it comes to pitching. While the bats still have not gotten hot yet, there is no doubt that if pitching got better, so will the offense as there is still a lot of baseball to play.
Max Montplaisir takes the loss (0-1) while Jason Starrels takes the Win (1-0)
What’s next
The Shepherds next game is tomorrow at 1 pm against the Inland Valley Pirates. The game will be played at Cypress College in Cypress and will be live streamed on the Shepherds Facebook page which can be found at https://www.facebook.com/socalfcabaseball/. To stay up to date on all things Shepherds baseball follow us on Instagram (@shepherds_baseball), Twitter (@SoCalShpherds), and Facebook (Southern California FCA Baseball).