Tribune-Herald
What’s worse than not scoring runs? How about making six errors and falling for the second time in a row to the first-place team.
The San Rafael Pacifics played fundamental baseball — pitching, hitting and defending better — to blank the Hawaii Stars 4-0 in a Pacific Association game Thursday at San Rafael, Calif., knocking the visitors further down the four-team league standings.
Logan Odom pitched 7 2/3 scoreless innings for the win. He surrendered six hits and four walks and whiffed nine.
The Stars couldn’t shine against San Rafael’s talented arms, especially with runners in scoring position. Hawaii stranded 10 runners on base, the same number as the Pacifics.
Logan is a 6-foot-6, 240-pound right-hander from USC, who was picked in the eighth round of the 2011 Major League Baseball draft by the Los Angeles Angels. Logan, 23, spent two years in the Angels’ farm system.
He left in the eighth after giving up two walks. Nate King replaced him and struck out Tyler Krobetzky. Colin Allen struck out three in the ninth to slam the door on the Stars.
Allen, 26, was a 22nd round pick in 2007 of the Baltimore Orioles. He pitched at Lamar (Colo.) Community College and three years in Baltimore’s farm system.
Matt Stropoli turned in a quality start, going 6 2/3 innings and allowing three runs on five hits and two walks. But he still took the loss. Tony York pitched 1 1/3 innings and yielded an unearned run.
Perhaps the only consolation for Hawaii was that the six errors only led to one unearned run.
In the fourth, the Pacifics took a 1-0 lead on Danny Gonzalez’ RBI single. Kyle Dhannani doubled to right field, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on Gonzalez’ hit to left field.
San Rafael tacked on two runs in the seventh, relying on three hits and one costly Hawaii error, one of four in the game. Prince Kendall had an RBI double, and later scored on an error.
Maikel Jova, last year’s batting champ, took an 0 for 4 collar, but his teammates compiled enough timely hits to help San Rafael improve to 17-6.
Katsuaki Furuki went 1 for 3 to lead Hawaii (12-14), watching his league-leading batting average fall to .380. Jova is hitting .275.
