Ray Torres shuts out Palo Alto Oaks
A four hit shutout from Ray Torres gave the Menlo Park Legends a 1-0 victory over the cross-town rival Palo Alto Oaks yesterday at Cañada College in Redwood City. Torres struck out six batters in his very efficient performance, averaging around 11 pitches per inning.
“Besides one pitch, I felt like I had three strong ones working,” Torres said. “A great defense behind me and a good offense made me work hard, and I just couldn’t let up.”
The game remained scoreless until the bottom of the sixth, where shortstop Pierson Jeremiah knocked in second baseman Tyger Pederson with a single to right-center. In the seventh, the Legends attempted to play some small ball by bunting three times in a row to give Torres some extra support, but were unable to get a run in.
“Honestly, I didn’t think that they would let me go past seven innings,” he said. “But then they told me if you want to go, you’ve got it, so I took advantage of that and finished the game.”
With only one out standing in the way of Torres’ shutout, with a man on second, the Oaks hit a shallow fly ball to right in between Pederson and right fielder CJ Jacobe that looked like it would ruin the shutout. But Jacobe, going face-first into the grass caught the ball and preserved the shutout.
“I was speechless. That would have been my outing. They would have tied the game. To have him [Jacobe] out there making that catch was unbelievable,” Torres said.
Prior to the game, manager David Klein was confident that Torres was the deserving man for the bump against the Oaks, and this performance only bolstered his confidence.
“Ray has earned his spot as being our number one guy as of right now,” Klein said. “He’s given us three extremely competitive starts. He isn’t going to overpower guys, but he comes in and wills himself to victory with his fastball, curveball, change-up three-pitch mix. He’s always in the zone.”
The Legends host the league rival Walnut Creek Crawdads today at 2:00pm at Cañada College.
-Max Darrow, Legends Sportswriter
