Nuts' Durst suffers tough-luck loss, 1-0

By Brian VanderBeek
bvanderbeek@modbee.com

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The blindfolded dart throwing procedure that determines the California League schedule brought a perplexing situation to John Thurman Field this weekend.

The High Desert Mavericks are in town for a four-game series. It's the first meetings of the season between the teams, which means all the Modesto Nuts know about this team they've construed from the stat sheets.

Saturday's 1-0 High Desert victory, coming on the heels of Modesto's shutout win on Friday night, seems to make a liar of the stat page.

The Mavericks lead the league in batting average, runs scored and home runs by an absurdly wide margin over the second-best teams in each category. The assumption is that their offensive prowess is due to much more than the launching pad that is their home ballpark.

There is no reason to believe that's not the case. On the other hand, the Mavericks haven't shown it in this series.

"They're a good hitting team and we've pitched them outstanding," said Nuts' manager Jerry Weinstein. "We've pitched 18 innings against them and have given them one run on nine hits. You tell them coming in that's all they're going to get and they'd ask you to go to Vegas and bet on it."

This latest Nuts-Mavs pitching duel featured Modesto's Ken Durst (2-9) against High Desert's Steven Hensley (4-1,) with the Mavs' righty coming out on top by the narrowest of margins.

"I was just trying to throw strikes and keep us in the game," Durst said. "We were facing a real good pitcher out there so I was trying to keep it close."

A strong factor in both pitchers' success, again, was the schedule. While the Nuts have played countless games against their North Division rivals, a July series pitting teams against each other for the first time is a strange brew.

"It's definitely different because we're use to pitching to guys we've already faced a few times and know their tendencies," Durst said. "I think it's an advantage to the pitcher the first time you see a team. The more hitters see a guy the more they're comfortable with facing him."

The Nuts had several great chances to score, but went zero-for-nine with runners in scoring position.

Charlie Blackmon led off the first with a hustle double on a line drive to right-center, but was stranded at third.

The Nuts threatened again in the second when Scott Beerer led off with a single and was sacrificed to second by Lars Davis, but Beerer was stranded.

Blackmon, who had three hits, again tried to get Modesto going in the sixth with a leadoff double to right field, and a wild pitch moved him to third before an out was made. But Hensley got out of the jam on a ground ball and two strikeouts.

The Mavericks snapped a 20-inning scoreless streak in the seventh, getting a leadoff single from Joe Dunnigan and a one-out walk to Jamie McOwen than ended Durst's outing.

Modesto saved one more threat for the ninth, getting two-out singles from Davis and Matt Repec to put runners at the corners off Mavericks' closer Steve Richard.

Brian Rike worked the count full, then fouled off a pitch before striking out on a curveball for Modesto's 12th whiff of the game.

Bee staff writer Brian VanderBeek can be reached at bvanderbeek@modbee.com or 578-2300.