Matthew McLain, leadoff batter for the Santa Barbara Foresters, resumed Thursday where he left off a night earlier for the local summer collegiate baseball club.
He followed up Wednesday’s game-winning, 10th-inning double against Santa Maria Pea Soup Andersen’s by rapping four straight singles to spark a 10-7 victory in the series finale at Pershing Park.
McLain scored three times while going 4-for-5 to improve his batting average to .511 (24-for-47). Jace Jung, batting right behind McLain, also went 4-for-5 with three runs scored and two RBIs. He stayed ahead of McLain at the top of the Foresters’ season batting charts (23-for-40, .575).
“With him and Jung at the top of the lineup, they’re relentless,” Foresters manager Bill Pintard said. “If you look at their uniforms at the end of every night, they’re caked with mud.”
Noah Cardenas drove in three runs with a pair of singles for Santa Barbara.
Kyle Luckham pitched the first four innings to earn the win, allowing three runs on five hits and a walk with four strikeouts.
“I thought his stuff was the best it’s been all summer,” Pintard said.
Bryce Warrecker pitched two scoreless innings of relief while allowing just one hit and no walks with two strikeouts. The Cal Poly-bound righthander from Santa Barbara High has yet to allow a run this summer in 14 innings over six appearances. He’s given up just five hits and one walk with 26 strikeouts.
“Warrecker again —again — had another stellar outing,” Pintard said. “He can throw all of his pitches for strikes.”
Santa Maria tied the game twice. A two-out, RBI double by former Dos Pueblos High star Dustin Demeter knotted the score at 1-1 in the third and a two-run home run by Justin Lamazares made it 3-3 in the fourth. Connor Gurnik got three of Pea Soup’s 11 hits,
But a two-out double by Pat Caulfield and RBI single by McLain put Santa Barbara ahead for good in the bottom of the inning. The Foresters scored in five straight innings to boost their margin to 10-3. Jung sparked a three-run seventh by hitting a two-run double, stealing third base, and scoring on a passed ball.
Pea Soup rallied with a four-run eighth which was capped by Nick Gatewood’s RBI single. Demeter keyed the inning when he drew a bases-loaded walk with a 10-pitch at-bat, fouling off five pitches which included four in a row.
But Peyton Pallette, the fifth pitcher for the Foresters, came in to strike out Santa Maria’s last batter in the eighth and retire the side in the ninth to earn his first save of the season.
The Foresters (13-2) will take the Pershing Park Diamond again tonight at 6 o’clock to play the San Francisco Seals.
email: mpatton@newspress.com
