VISALIA, CA - Bo Takahashi twirled a career-start against Rancho Cucamonga, registering a career-high 12 batters, but the Visalia offense sputtered and Visalia fell 4-1.
VISALIA, CA - Bo Takahashi twirled a career-start against Rancho Cucamonga, registering a career-high 12 batters, but the Visalia offense sputtered and Visalia fell 4-1.
Going back to 2017, Takahashi has now put together two stellar outings in his last three outings in a Rawhide uniform. His penultimate start of 2017 was a eight-inning, one-hit shutout effort against Modesto where he carried a no-hitter into the eighth. Tonight, he pitched backwards, mixing in all four of his offerings in various counts and keeping the Rancho Cucamonga batters unbalanced.
Takahashi went five innings and was brilliant: allowing just one run on three hits with no walks. Rancho Cucamonga's lone run against Takahashi was a solo homer by Connor Wong, his second in as many games. After that, Takahashi settled in and retired 11 straight Quakes, including a streak where he struck out six hitters in a row.
But for every scoreless inning that Takahashi dished out, Quakes starter Andrew Sopko (W, 1-0) matched it. Sopko, coming back to Rancho Cucamonga after a season with Class Double-A Tulsa, dominated Rawhide hitters, allowing just one run on two hits with seven strikeouts and no walks.
Visalia (1-1) scored their lone run in the bottom of the fourth. Pavin Smith led off with a single to left and stole second. Ramon Hernandez, playing in his first contest of 2018, laced a double to the gap in left-center, scoring Smith easily from first. At the time, the score was tied 1-1. But for the rest of the game, Visalia mustered just one hit, a two-out double by Jason Morozowski that one-hopped the wall in dead center field.
Rancho Cucamonga (1-1) scored the decisive runs in the top of the sixth with Tyler Mark (L, 0-1) on the mound. Mark allowed three straight singles to being the inning and then a soft groundout, a single, and a throwing error by catcher Dominic Miroglio scored a run respectively and the Quakes took a 4-1 lead.
Visalia drew blanks against Andrew Istler and Nolan Long (SV, 1) in the final four frames of the game. Visalia had a chance in the bottom of the eighth, with two runners on and the possible tying run at the plate. But Hernandez lofted a fly ball to right and the threat was over.
Kevin Ginkel tossed two scoreless innings of relief and Keegan Long added a quiet frame in the ninth for the Rawhide bullpen.
After scoring 11 runs on 14 hits in the season opener, the Rawhide offense sputtered tonight. They will look to ignite the bats again in tomorrow's game, when RHP Emilio Vargas (0-0, -.-) will take on RHP Jordan Sheffield (0-0, -.-), the nineteenth-ranked prospect in the Los Angeles Dodgers system. First pitch is scheduled for 7 PM and tickets are still available on rawhidebaseball.com.
