Napa puts together four good innings before three bad ones bite them in loss to Armijo
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
SACRAMENTO-Raley Field is a place where top Major League prospects get their final bit of seasoning before going to the show.
On Wednesday night the Napa High baseball team got the opportunity to play on the same field that Josh Donaldson, Madison Bumgarner, and Hunter Pence have played on in recent years.
“It’s beautiful here,” Napa coach Jason Chatham said of playing at the home of the Sacramento River Cats, the triple-A affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. “It looks almost artificial in the sense that everything, every blade of grass is perfect. So, it’s really nice to get a chance to play baseball with all the rain we’ve had, but much less at a field like this. It’s really an awesome opportunity for our boys.”
However, in the game Napa took a tough 15-0 loss.
It was a tail of two games.
After four innings there was no score, and it appeared as though it would be a pitchers duel the rest of the way.
“Early on I thought we played really well,” Chatham added. “We just didn’t get those key at-bats to drive guys in, but we played good defensive baseball in the beginning.”
Then, following a two-error, seven-run top of the fifth the game flipped on its head. Following the fifth inning the Indians (3-1) scored two more runs in the sixth, and six more in the seventh.
“And then things kind of broke open a little bit,” Chatham explained. “We got a little bit sloppy.”
Napa (0-5) had multiple opportunities throughout the game to push a run across, but they squandered every opportunity they had.
“We’ve been doing a lot of live pens, or lots of live hitting off of pitchers in the cages, ” Chatham said. “Coach Randy (Keen) pitched in professional baseball just about a year ago, and the guys are taking quality hacks off of coach Randy. He’s going to throw better than what our guys are going to see on the mound, and they handle coach Randy really well, so to me, it’s just a matter of taking what we can do live against coach Randy in our practices and taking it into the game. And, I have to think that it’s going to come over eventually here.”
The Grizzlies top hitter on the day was Cole Kipsey who went 2-for-2 with two singles. Travis Brayton was 1-for-3 with a single as well.
Lucas Brandon took the loss for the Grizzlies. He was charged with three runs, all of which were unearned.
Napa will play their second game of back-to-back-to-back games when they travel to Fairfield today for a matchup with Vanden at 4 p.m.
