Blaze's Campbell turns in six one-hit frames

The key to Eddie Campbell's success on Friday night was very simple. 

"We made pitches when we had to," the 24-year-old left-hander said.

Campbell (3-2) allowed only one hit -- a single in his final frame -- over six shutout innings, striking out five and walking five to notch the win in Class A Advanced Bakersfield's 4-1 victory over Stockton.

Coming off of two outings in which he allowed a total of nine runs -- eight earned -- over 5 2/3 innings, the 2013 15th-round pick lowered his ERA to 4.73. It was the second time in seven Cal League starts this year he's kept the opposition from scoring.

"Felt good. We had everything going," Campbell said. "There were a couple situations with runners on, and we made pitches and got out of innings, especially after we scored. Those are the most crucial to me -- having shutdown innings after scoring."

He shrugged off a one-out walk in the first by inducing a double-play ball off the bat of B.J. Boyd to end the inning. Campbell moved on to work 1-2-3 frames in the second and third.

"One thing we're really stressing as an organization is taking it one pitch at a time," he said. "Every pitch is your focus right then. You're not thinking ahead and you're not thinking about pitches you made earlier. You're thinking about the one pitch at the moment. That's what we did, and that really helped."

That mentality helped the Virginia Tech product strand two baserunners in the fourth after he opened the inning with back-to-back walks.

"With that approach, it's helpful, because sometimes we get into those situations and you can be overwhelmed with no outs and two runners on," Campbell said. "You start thinking about the future and thinking about results, and you really need to focus on process and throwing one pitch at a time."

Although he issued two more walks in the fifth, the Massachusetts native was aware that by the end of the inning he had yet to surrender a hit.

"We know what's going on," Campbell said. "We talk about the hitters every inning and what they did throughout, so you know it's going on. It's not anything that should faze anyone -- it doesn't faze me." 

Joe Bennie broke up the bid with a ground single up the middle to lead off the sixth. Boyd replaced Bennie at first on a fielder's choice, but Campbell got out of the frame when Tyler Marincov slapped a grounder toward third baseman Jay Baum, who started a double play.

"It was a really good play on Jay's part," Campbell said. "That was right down the line, and he had to make the throw off one foot."

The southpaw had thrown 90 pitches -- 49 for strikes -- by that point.

"In the moment, you're just focused on going long as you can," Campbell said. "I didn't know where pitch my count was at, and I was ready to keep going."

Instead, he turned the ball over to Vinny Nittoli, who allowed a run on three hits and a walk while striking out two over 1 1/3 innings. Isaac Sanchez pitched around a hit and two walks over the final 1 2/3 frames for his second save.

The Blaze's Chantz Mack homered, doubled and drove in two runs.