A6 BAKER CITY HERALD • SATURDAY, APRIL 9, 2022
SPORTS
BAKER SOFTBALL OPENS GOL SCHEDULE
Baker can’t hold late lead, drops twinbill at Mac-Hi
Bulldogs led 9-2
in last inning of
first game
BY JAYSON JACOBY
jjacoby@bakercityherald.com
Baker’s softball team was
poised to start Greater Oregon
League play with an easy win
over Mac-Hi on Wednesday,
April 6, at Milton-Freewater.
But suddenly it wasn’t easy.
Or, ultimately, a win.
Leading 9-2 going into the
bottom of the last inning, the
Bulldogs gave up eight runs to
the Pioneers and lost 10-9.
That final half-inning was
a litany of hits, walks and er-
rors, any one of which, had it
gone the other way, might well
have resulted in a Bulldog win,
Baker coach Sonny Gulick said.
The game-winning single,
which came with two outs,
epitomized the Mac-Hi rally,
he said.
The ball was just out of the
reach of second baseman Kiley
Jo Aldrich.
The Pioneers had other hits
earlier in the inning that also
found the open ground be-
tween Baker defenders.
“They were hitting all those
prime spots to push runs
across,” Gulick said.
Mac-Hi had four hits in the
seventh inning, along with five
walks and a passed ball. Baker
also had two of its three errors
in the inning.
Gulick said his young team,
which was missing a couple of
Mac-Hi cut the lead to 7-2
with two runs in the fifth, and
Gulick said the Pioneers would
have scored more in that in-
ning and in the sixth if not for
a pair of key defensive plays in
the outfield.
In the fifth, Fry ended the
inning with a tough catch in
right field.
And with the bases loaded
and two outs in the sixth,
Chesterman made a play in left
field that likely saved two runs.
“We played good softball
until the last inning,” Gulick
said.
Cuzick was dominant in the
circle through six innings. She
had 13 strikeouts. At the plate
she was 3 for 4 with a dou-
ble, triple and 2 RBIs. Fry was
also 3 for 4 with an RBI. Kaci
Anderson was 1 for 3 with 2
RBIs, and Makayla Rabourne
was 2 for 3.
Game one
Baker 0 7 0 0 0 2 0 — 9
Mac-Hi 0 0 0 0 2 0 8 — 10
Cuzick and K. Anderson. Per-
kins, Giguire (2) and Hern-
don, Perkins (3).
Game two
Baker 3 0 1 2 0 2 0 — 8
Mac-Hi 3 2 0 5 1 0 x — 11
Rayl, Cuzick (4) and K. Ander-
son. Giguire and Perkins.
players, also “panicked a little
bit.”
It was the first time this sea-
son that the Bulldogs had to try
to stem a last-inning rally.
“I told them, you just have to
learn to win in those close sit-
uations,” Gulick said. “It’s not a
loss I wanted to take.”
In the second game Baker
took a 3-0 lead early, but
Mac-Hi had another big inning
— five runs in the fourth to
take a 10-6 lead — and the Pi-
oneers held on to complete the
sweep with an 11-8 win.
Gulick said he was happy
with his team’s response to the
extreme disappointment of
how the first game ended.
“We got three runs on the
board right out of the gate,”
he said. “I thought we showed
great growth with the way we
went into game two.”
Game one
After a scoreless first in-
ning for both teams, Baker’s
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
Kaycee Cuzick pitches against Burns on Friday, April 1, 2022, at the
Baker Sports Complex.
bats awakened in the second
inning as the Bulldogs scored
seven runs.
The first three hitters
reached base, Kaycee Cuzick
and Candace Peterson with
singles, and Kaci Anderson
with a walk. Courtesy runner
Kaydence Thomas scored the
first run of the game on Oakley
Anderson’s ground ball. Kaci
Anderson scored on a wild
pitch, and Sydney Fry drove in
Peterson with a single to boost
Baker’s lead to 3-0.
Oakley Anderson scored on
Salissa Chesterman’s ground-
out. With two outs, Brooklyn
Rayl and Cuzick each had an
RBI single, and Kaci Anderson
drove in the seventh run with
a double.
Baker cut the lead to 11-8 in
the sixth on Aldrich’s RBI dou-
ble and Rabourne’s run-scor-
ing single, but the Bulldogs
couldn’t get anything going in
the seventh.
Rabourne was 3 for 3 with
two RBIs, Cuzick 2 for 3 with
two RBIs, Aldrich 3 for 4 with
an RBI, Rayl 2 for 4 with an
RBI, and Fry had two more
hits.
Baker outhit Mac-Hi in both
games — 11 to 9 in the first
and 13 to 7 in the second.
“We hit the ball very well all
day,” Gulick said. “Nine and
eight runs is enough to win
most games.”
He’s confident those wins
will come if Baker can cut back
on walks and errors. The Bull-
dogs gave up 11 walks to Mac-
Hi’s two in the second game,
and committed eight errors
while the Pioneers had only
one miscue in the field.
Game two
Gulick said several of Baker’s
After taking the quick 3-0
walks in the second game were
lead, Baker gave up three runs on close calls at the plate.
in the bottom of the first, and
He credited Rayl, who wasn’t
Mac-Hi took a 5-3 lead with
expecting to pitch, for throw-
two more runs in the second.
ing very well to start the second
But the Bulldogs rallied to
game before giving way to Cuz-
lead 6-5 after four innings.
ick in the fourth inning.
Rayl had an RBI single and Al-
Baker, 4-4 on the season,
drich stole home in the fourth will travel to Nyssa on Monday,
to give Baker the lead.
April 11, for a single game at
Another big inning proved 2 p.m. PDT, and then head to
costly, though, as the Pioneers Marsing, Idaho, on Wednesday,
responded with five runs in the April 13, with the first pitch set
bottom of the fourth.
for 4 p.m. PDT.
Two runners scored on a
Baker returns to GOL play
wild pitch to give Mac-Hi a 7-6 on Friday, April 15, playing
lead, and the Pioneers scored
host to Ontario in a double-
four more runs with two outs. header starting at 2 p.m.
Opening Day in MLB: New No. 21 patches, NL DHs and Guardians
BY BEN WALKER
AP Baseball Writer
Andrew McCutchen got the
first hit of the year, up against
the still-dormant ivy at Wrig-
ley Field. He delivered as a Na-
tional League designated hitter.
Wearing a Roberto Clemente
No. 21 patch, too.
A little later on opening
day, Nico Hoerner hit the first
home run of 2022. He con-
nected off a pitcher who used
an electronic wristband to
receive his signals from the
catcher.
Soon after that, in another
yard, the Cleveland Guardians
took the field for the first time.
New season, and definitely
a new look all across Major
League Baseball.
And if the weather wasn’t
quite summer-like in some
spots Thursday, April 7, well,
who cares?
“It might be cold, it might
be windy. But it’s opening day,”
Cardinals fan Mary Welsh
of Belleville, Illinois, said at
Busch Stadium before St. Louis
hosted Pittsburgh.
Out near Disneyland, where
temperatures neared 100 de-
grees, AL MVP Shohei Ohtani
flashed his 100 mph heat and
took his swings for the Los An-
geles Angels.
Late night in Phoenix, af-
ter Padres starter Yu Darvish
threw six no-hit innings, rookie
Seth Beer cracked a three-run
homer in the ninth to give Ar-
izona a comeback win on Na-
tional Beer Day in the United
States.
No joke.
In Atlanta, the Braves cel-
ebrated their World Series
championship with a pregame
parade. At every ballpark, um-
pires started to get their say —
this year, they’ve joined referees
from other sports in announc-
ing replay review decisions to
the crowd.
As seats filled up in rainy
Washington, chilly Kansas City
and more, it seemed fans de-
cided the 99-day owners’ lock-
out that delayed spring training
and pushed back opening day
by a week wouldn’t deter them
from coming back.
Wearing an Ernie Banks jer-
sey, 23-year-old Philip Lijewski
from Guthrie, Oklahoma, en-
joyed the view at Wrigley as the
Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee
Brewers loosened up. He said
the anger and acrimony over
the labor strife didn’t dampen
his enthusiasm for the game.
“Not really,” Lijewski said.
“I’m glad that they came to a
conclusion sooner rather than
later. I was bummed that we
didn’t get to do it April 4. But
it’s April 7, so not too many
days after.”
More than eight months af-
ter announcing a new change,
Cleveland played its first regu-
lar-season game as the Guard-
ians. Known as the Indians
since 1915, the club made the
switch in the interest of social
justice.
Cleveland wore its road uni-
forms for the game in Kansas
City, with the city name on the
jersey.
“Supporting the city is what
it comes down to,” star pitcher
Shane Bieber said a day before
the opener. “Going out there
with my teammates, doing it
the right way is really all we can
do. It was a little bit different
getting used to the change, but
I’d say we’re all getting used to it
day by day.”
Plenty of stars from other
sports were at Kauffman Sta-
dium to see top prospect
Bobby Witt Jr. and the Royals
beat the Guardians 3-1. Kansas
City Chiefs coach Andy Reid
and several of his players were
in attendance, as were mem-
bers of the Kansas basketball
team, which rallied past North
Carolina in the men’s NCAA
championship game Monday
night in New Orleans.
A strong wind made it seem
much colder than the game-
time temperature of 47 degrees,
and intermittent drizzle turned
to streaking pellets of ice
during the national anthem.
After earlier rainouts at Yan-
kee Stadium and Target Field,
the Brewers-Cubs game be-
came the first one of the sea-
son.
It was a raw 44 degrees
when Chicago right-hander
Kyle Hendricks threw the first
pitch, which Kolten Wong
lofted for a wind-blown pop-
out.
McCutchen sliced a dou-
ble in the second inning for
the season’s first hit, then sin-
gled and scored in the fourth
for the first run. The 2013 NL
MVP, the 35-year-old Mc-
Cutchen was Milwaukee’s des-
ignated hitter.
As part of the MLB labor
deal, the National League has
now permanently adopted the
designated hitter — the Amer-
ican League began using it in
1973, and the NL added it for
the pandemic-shortened 2020
season before going back to
letting pitchers hit last year.
Before the Cubs batted in
the bottom of the third, the
videoboard in left field showed
a clip dedicated to pitchers hit-
ting with Sarah McLachlan’s “I
Will Remember You” serving
as the soundtrack.
2022
I
Northeast Oregon
PHOTO
CONTEST
“Thank you pitchers. See you
in a pinch,” it said at the end.
McCutchen is among sev-
eral active Roberto Clemente
Award winners who will wear
No. 21 — the number worn by
the late Pirates Hall of Famer
— on the backs of their hats
and helmets for the rest of their
careers.
MLB said it was a “special
tribute to his enduring legacy.”
The announcement was timed
for the 50th anniversary of the
year in which Clemente, the
Pittsburgh great from Puerto
Rico, died in a plane crash
while on a humanitarian relief
effort.
“It’s a privilege. An honor,”
said Nationals slugger Nelson
Cruz, the most recipient of the
Clemente award. “He means so
much for baseball, in general.
He was an example to follow
– how to be professional, on
and off the field. A remarkable
player and a remarkable hu-
man being who lost his life try-
ing to help others.”
“He paid the ultimate price,
and whatever we do is not
enough,” he said.
Hoerner launched the first
homer, a two-run drive for the
Cubs off NL Cy Young Award
winner Corbin Burnes. Brew-
ers catcher Omar Narváez and
Burnes used the newly ap-
proved electronic pitch calling
system — Narváez could push
a button on his wristband to
signal what he wanted thrown,
without fear of wiggling his fin-
gers and having the sign stolen.
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