Beyer bows out of D-I baseball tourney at hands of Tracy for second consecutive season

Beyer coach Dom Duran summed it up rather succinctly: “There are a lot of wet eyes in our dugout.”

It was a six-run outburst in the sixth inning that, essentially, brought tears to the eyes of the Patriots as Tracy romped to a 10-3 victory, ending Beyer’s season for a second consecutive year.

It was the third meeting in the past 13 months for these clubs. Beyer defeated the Bulldogs 5-2 in the final of the 2014 Dick Windemuth Tournament, but fell 7-5 in a second-round playoff game three weeks later.

The Patriots were in control of this Sac-Joaquin Section Division I South elimination game for the first five innings. Left-hander Kevin Duffy went five innings (allowing two batters to reach before getting the hook in the sixth), giving up four runs, three of which were earned.

He pitched better than his line indicates. He gave up just three hits, struck out eight, walked two and hit a batter. One of those walks and the hit batsman came in the sixth, when he may or may not have run out of gas.

It just depends on whom you ask.

“I felt like I was throwing harder toward the end of the game,” said Duffy, who admitted that he tried to talk Duran into letting him stay in. “... I felt like I could finish the inning out.”

The scorebook backs him up. He minimized damage in the first and fourth innings. But Duran saw all he needed to see in the fifth.

“Every one of my guys never admit when they’re done,” said Duran, who has guided the Patriots to three playoff appearances in his three seasons at the helm.

“But it’s up to us to see the signs, and the writing was on the wall. But even with his pitch count and with the number of innings, we decided to let him go back out there. When one runner got on, we let him fly. When the second runner got on, we had to bring in the reliever.”

That didn’t work well for the Pats, as the pen allowed six runs to cross the plate on eight hits – all while facing 12 batters.

“Their starter really kept us off balance,” said Tracy coach Vic Alkire, who celebrated his 71st birthday Monday. “But we’re the type of team that just kind of grinds and grinds and tries to take pitches early and get the pitch count up. He was close to 100 pitches and what they had behind him wasn’t up to what he did tonight.”

Trailing 1-0 after one, Beyer scored all three of its runs in the third inning.

Sophomore Tyler Orique started the inning with a double to the corner in left-center, and moved to third on an infield single by leadoff hitter Chris Alonzo. From there, Duran called for a delayed steal by Alonzo, who purposely got caught in a rundown, allowing Orique to race home for the tying run. Alonzo moved to third on a sharp single up the middle by Caleb Saalfeld (3 for 3), giving the Pats runners on the corners with no outs. After Modesto Metro Conference MVP Jack Large walked to load the bases, Ryan Frakes lofted a fly ball to right that appeared deep enough to get Alonzo home. But Cameron Hoff fired a strike from right field to the dish that cut down Alonzo on a rare 9-2 double play.

Designated hitter Jordan Walls delivered a two-run single to right that allowed Saalfeld and Large (both tagged up on Hoff’s throw home) to scamper in, giving the Pats a 3-1 cushion.

The Bulldogs scratched across a run in the fourth to halve their deficit, and it appeared the fans at Klein Family Field were in for a tight finish.

“This was a bitter way to end it,” Duran said. “It seems like the last two teams we’ve played (Pitman and Tracy), we just cannot get past them.”

Pitman, which knocked Beyer into the losers bracket with a 7-2 victory on Monday, ended the Pats’ season in the 2013 playoffs.

Tracy (21-10) will be off until Thursday, when it takes on the loser of Wednesday’s 7 p.m. game between No. 2 Pitman and No. 1 St. Mary’s (Stockton), the six-time defending South champion.

This story was originally published May 19, 2015 at 11:02 PM with the headline "Beyer bows out of D-I baseball tourney at hands of Tracy for second consecutive season."