Cool Cardoza helps keep Los Banos baseball unbeaten

Any doubt about Kody Cardoza’s mental fortitude was answered in the fifth inning on Tuesday afternoon.

The wheels very easily could have come off for the Los Banos sophomore as Ceres loaded the bases with three straight singles to open the inning and the heart of the order coming to the plate. Staked to a four-run lead, Cardoza was focused on damage control. He did a little better than that.

Cardoza got a first-pitch pop up for the first out and followed with a shallow fly ball to center that wasn’t quite deep enough to score a run. The big right-hander then struck out Adrian Lujan to escape the inning unscathed. It proved pivotal as a late Bulldog rally fell short and the Tigers remained undefeated with a 6-4 victory.

“I was just focused on throwing strikes and knew I couldn’t let my emotions get to me,” Cardoza said. “The pop up was a big confidence boost. I just tried to throw strikes and let me defense play behind me. It worked out.”

Finding a way has become the Tigers’ mantra as they’ve opened the season 10-0 and 5-0 in the Western Athletic Conference with half of the contests being decided by two runs or less.

A fast start helped keep that run going on Tuesday.

Trey Augustine (2 for 3) opened the scoring with an RBI single in the second inning. Los Banos pushed the lead to five, hitting through the order in the third inning. Cardoza got things started with a lead-off double as six different Tigers picked up hits in the rally. Ryan Lopez delivered the big blow with a two-out, two-run single to make it 5-0.

“We preach it all day everyday, middle away. Look for something good and if it’s there, put a swing on it,” Los Banos coach Pat Fuentes. “I don’t know what it was five-consecutive, four-consecutive hits. We got it done. Innings like that are how you win ballgames.

“Unfortunately, we’re not finishing games the way we should. We get a lead and then we die down. We give an inning away defensively. It’s just kind of been that for one inning a game. We’ve gotten away with it so far because our pitching has been so tough, but we can’t keep doing it.”

The letdown inning proved to be the fourth for LB on Tuesday as Ceres (10-3, 3-2 WAC) pushed across two runs on just one hit and three Tiger errors. Blane Abeyta (2 for 4) cashed in a lead-off walk with an RBI double. He came around to score on a couple infield errors to trim the lead to 5-2.

The Bulldogs kept the pressure applied from there, getting three hits in each of the final three frames.

Cardoza survived his fifth-inning trouble, but was touched up for a Zach Kommavong RBI double in the sixth that made it a 6-3 game. He stranded runners on the corners to conclude his afternoon, allowing two earned runs on eight hits while striking out seven in six complete innings.

Julian Arrechavala was called on to close the door in the seventh, but had to sidestep some trouble of his own after yielding singles to three of the first four batters he faced. An Ismael Ontiveros run-scoring single brought Ceres within 6-4 and put the tying run aboard with one out. Arrechavala answered back with a strikeout and a fly ball to end the game.

“We still have plenty of areas we can be better,” Cardoza said. “I know we have the talent to keep it going, but it’s all about avoiding those mental letdowns. We just have to keep going up and having good at-bats and playing solid defense. We’re undefeated and we haven’t even played our best ball yet. We just have to try and keep getting better.”

This story was originally published March 28, 2017 at 11:05 PM with the headline "Cool Cardoza helps keep Los Banos baseball unbeaten."