Big Innings Lead Legends to Fourth Straight Win
Redwood City, Calif. – After racking up three consecutive conference victories, the Legends took the night off of CCL play and turned their attention to the Rally Factory Rockhounds. Having already beaten the Rockhounds once this summer, the Legends hit the field on Friday night looking to keep the good times rolling. They met a Rockhounds team that was hungry for victory and they came out and scored the first six runs of the games. But it isn’t how you start, it is how you finish. The Legends would scored 12 of the final 13 runs of the game en route to a 12-7 victory over the Rockhounds. With the win in their thirtieth game of the summer, the Legends now boast a solid 19-11 record and a four game winning streak.
Sheldon McClelland was on the mound for Menlo Park, making his second start of the summer, and it did not get off to the start he was hoping. After getting the first out of the first inning, He proceeded to allow the next seven hitters to reach base, including five hits and two doubles. Hank Pankratz singled home a run, Garlind Webster doubled home another, and Evan Faccenda brought home two with his single. In the blink of an eye, the Legends found themselves trailing by four after one. It did not get better for McClelland in the second as he allowed three free passes to open up the inning before allowing two of them to score with nobody out. He would get out of the inning with no further damage after striking out three, but that would mark the end of his outing. He would leave the game trailing 6-0 going into the bottom of the second. Menlo Park would get one run back in the bottom of the frame with a Chandler Bengston RBI-single, but still trailed by five.
The first of two big innings for the Legends on offense would be in the bottom of the third. Scott Ota led off with a single and with one out, Tyler Nelin singled him to third. RJ Williams would follow with a single to score Ota and cut the deficit to four. After Nick Brooks singled to load the bases, Bengston stepped up for the second time and drove a single to right field that scored Nelin and Williams. Giving him three runs batted in in the first three innings, the Legends made it a 6-4 game. Making his Legends debut on this day was Dempsey Grover, a catcher out of the University of California at Santa Barbara, and he tied the game with a two-run double and after Bengston’s hit. Two batters later, Ryan McCarthy put the Legends up for the first time with a single up the middle to score Grover and Menlo Park had a 7-6 lead they would not relinquish.
The second big inning for the Legends came in the bottom of the sixth with the score still holding at 7-6. Patrick McColl led off the inning with a single to right field, and he was driven home by Scott Ota who doubled to the gap in the outfield. After advancing to third on the throw to the plate, Ota scored with Justin Jacobs at the plate on a wild pitch to make it a 9-6 game. Jacobs would reach on an error by the first baseman of the Rockhounds, and Miguel Pimental would follow with a pinch-hit single to center. After an out, Nick Brooks used his third hit of the game to crush a curveball over the centerfield wall for a three-run homerun. His fifth homerun of the summer capped of the scoring for Menlo Park and made it a 12-6 game. In both the third and sixth innings, the Legends sent ten hitters to the plate.
Alexander Hernandez and Matt Bergandi provided seven innings of solid relief for the Legends, with Hernandez going four innings and Bergandi going three while allowing one run. Hernandez would be credited with his third win of the summer while Bergandi picked up his first save.
Menlo Park hits the road on Saturday and Sunday for what could be their biggest series of the summer. A doubleheader against CCL-North division rival Healdsburg Prune Packers awaits the Legends on Saturday, and the final game of the series is a night game on Sunday. First pitch for the front-half of the doubleheader Saturday is slated for 2:00 PM, with the nightcap expected to start around 6:00 PM.
