Rough sixth inning dooms Pintos against Osage

The sixth inning of Thursday’s game between California and School of Osage was anything but pretty. It was decisive, however, and it cost the Pintos in a 5-3 loss at home to the Indians.

With the Pintos (7-5) carrying a 2-0 lead into the top of the sixth, two Osage (5-8) hits followed by two California errors quickly tied the score, and before all was said and done in the inning, the Indians scratched across two more runs to flip a two-run deficit into a two-run lead.

“They outplayed us all day. Give all the credit in the world to Osage,” California head coach Matt Moulder said. “They made the plays they had to make. Their pitcher threw a very nice ballgame. We didn’t make adjustments at the plate. We didn’t do the little things it takes to keep a lead and make the plays we needed to win a ballgame.”

The game featured seven errors in total, but given the magnitude of when the errors occurred for both sides, it seemed like more. The mistakes matched up with some timely hitting, which made life tough for starting pitchers Jacob Wolken (California) and Drake Gaines (Osage), both of whom were very sharp through five innings of play.

“We kept telling them throughout the progress of the game to keep fighting to stay in it,” Osage head coach David Flaspohler said. “They scored two early, and we had four errors on the day, but throughout the course of the game we were talking about our approach at the plate and what we could do there differently. I’m proud of them because they dealt with a lot of adversity tonight, and they were able to overcome that.”

Though the Pintos had at least two hitters reach base in four of the game’s first five innings, Gaines did an excellent job stranding runners. With the help of eight strikeouts and solid defense up the middle, Gaines did not allow California to cash in outside of its two third-inning runs.

While Wolken did not register the strikeout total of Gaines, he was even more dominant through five, allowing just four hits until trouble began in the sixth.

“You can’t put yourself in a position to have one bad break, one bad call or one bad hop beat you,” Moulder said. “You have to be focused every single play and every single minute you’re on the field. When you’re not doing the little things right, those little things allow you get get beat and that’s what happened today.”

Though the Pintos may have been a bit shell-shocked after falling behind, they certainly did their best not to show it. Catcher Sam Kirby led off the bottom half of the sixth with a walk, and would score to get a run back three batters later on a Kory Stephens groundout.

But that would be it for California’s offensive output. With runners in scoring position, Jackson Trachsel and Landon Mouse both flied out, which put any hopes of a rally to rest. After pitching Osage out of that sixth inning jam, reliever Trey Rassenfoss continued his strong work into the seventh. His closed out the game in style, catching Kirby’s comebacker for the game’s final out.

“We talk a lot about metal toughness and how to react to things,” Flaspohler said. “We don’t want plams up and shoulders shrugged. We want to live in the time zone right now and do what we can do now to move forward.”