St. Michael’s drops two at Bloomfield in non district baseball Tuesday

St. Michael’s drops two at Bloomfield in non district baseball Tuesday for its third-straight setback and yet another one-run defeat A bright spot was senior Sean Latham having a 6-for-7 doubleheader for the visitors, who play next on Friday night against Sandia Prep in the Portales tournament

By Arnie Leshin 

It’s evident that the St. Michael’s baseball needs to win those close games.

Tuesday’s non district doubleheader at Bloomfield brought a third one-run setback, 4-3. In game two, the Horsemen fell 13-3 in a mercy-rule 5-inning game.

St. Michael’s head coach Augustin Ruiz said, “We’ve got some things to clean up for now.”

Now at 4-6, and with three losses in a row, the Horsemen gave up four runs over the last three innings in a walk-off win for the home team. In the second game, it wasn’t nearly as close as the Bobcats got away to a 6-2 lead after three frames and added seven more in the next two innings to enforce the mercy rule.

St. Michael’s called on three pitchers in the second game, but to no avail.

“Our pitchers were missing spots bad,” said Ruiz, in his second season at St. Michael’s. “And those guys (Bloomfield) weren’t missing. Even the guys in the bottom of the order were putting good swings on balls.”

In the opener, Horsemen starter, senior Jude Roybal, was in command until the fifth inning, and was working with a 3-0 lead. But the Bobcats (5-4) tied it at 3-3 when Roybal hit two batters and his team’s defense became unaware of the number of outs there were.

Thinking there was already two outs, St. Michael’s first baseman touched first on a groundout and then rolled the baseball to the mound thinking it was the final out. With this, Bloomfield’s runners circled the bases.

Equally frustrating were the six base runners the Horsemen left in scoring position in the opener.

One bright spot was St. Michael’s senior Sean Latham having a 6-for-7 day at the plate.

One example of the close games shows the Horsemen scoring 59 runs and allowing 57. Their next stop is Friday at the Portales-Eastern New Mexico tournament, with a 6 p.m. scheduled start against Albuquerque Sandia Prep. On Saturday, St. Michael’s has a 1:30 afternoon contest versus Atoka, Okla.