A wild start to the postseason

“I just wanted that game so badly,” Kretsch said. “I’m praying we get them again.”

While Padres manager Mat Keplinger kept his ace up his sleeve for the championship game, Serra’s gutsiest pitching performance was the one that kept the Padres alive in last Wednesday’s 13-10 comeback win over Mitty in the semifinals.

Serra was trailing 8-1 in the second when junior right-hander Davis Minton entered the game. A former starter who has worked strictly in relief this season, Minton gave the Padres 4 1/3 innings, pitching through eight hits to allow just one run, while throwing a season-high 70 pitches. When he walked off the mound for the final time in the sixth, the Padres were leading 11-9.

“I really just wanted to keep the score as close as possible and give the offense that’s been doing great all year a chance to do what I knew we were capable of,” Minton said. “And I just wanted to go out there and keep the score as limited as possible.”

Minton flip-flopped roles with senior right-hander Braden Agosta this season. In 2023, Agosta was a late-inning reliever, while Minton worked predominantly as a starter.

“I love my role this year,” Minton said. “I love coming in at the end of the game. I love coming in and trying to shut down the win. I think it’s been great. Especially with how great our starting pitching staff has done this year, they’ve been able to bridge it and give me a chance to go out and finish the game.”

Even though he was a starter last year, his outing in the WCAL semis marked the second most pitches Minton has thrown in his varsity career. Only his April 18, 2023 outing warranted a heavier workload, when he threw 87 pitches in a 4-3 win over Bellarmine, a game in which he threw just four innings and took a no-decision.

Last week’s gutsy outing turned into his second win of the year. Minton is now 2-0 with a 0.60 ERA.

Serra’s No. 3 hitter Josiah Rodriguez put a jolt into the day just after Minton entered the game, highlighting a five-run bottom of the second with a grand slam homer to close the deficit to 8-6. Then, trailing 8-7 in the fifth, the Padres rallied for five more runs. Rodriguez tied it with an RBI single. Then Ian Josephson provided the go-ahead single to left.

“Dugout was pumped,” Minton said. “A lot of energy. We never really thought we were out of that game. ... We have a lot of confidence in every individual on our team. I think we never really thought we were out of that game, and kept our energy and eventually came back.”

Serra was also pumped to see the return of Josephson. The sweet-swinging left-handed hitting junior departed Serra’s regular-season finale May 3 with a shoulder injury after sliding headlong into third base. He seemed to show no ill effects, going 3 for 7 with three RBIs in the WCAL tournament.

“He’s a guy I grew up with and hit with all the time,” Minton said. “So seeing him go down was a little scary. But he’s been back and hitting this week and he should be getting back to full strength.”

Jake Downing was the wrecking ball at the plate for the Padres, though. The left-handed hitting senior second baseman went 6 for 9 with two home runs and seven RBIs in the tourney, with moonshot homers to right against each Bellarmine in last Tuesday’s opener at Frisella Field, and the title game at Valley.

“He’s been on fire lately,” Kretsch said. “He’s been the leader of our offense. ... That home run he had against Valley was absolutely huge. He’s been able to put in competitive at-bats and win those at-bats in big situations.”

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Two other left-handed hitting Serra greats are close to home this week — one visiting, and the other looking to stay.

Happy birthday to James Outman, a 2015 Serra grad, who turned 27 on Tuesday. Not a bad birthday gift at all, Outman started in center field for the Los Angeles Dodgers in their 10-2 win over the Giants at Oracle Park. Outman was runner-up in the NL Rookie of the Year voting race last year, second only to Arizona Diamondbacks wunderkind Corbin Carroll. The former Serra Padre is off to a rough start this year, batting just .155 through the first six weeks of the season. After walking in the third inning Tuesday, and later getting caught off third base when Matt Chapman started a crafty 5-3 double play, Outman broke an 0-for-16 rut with a ninth-inning double.

Meanwhile, 2016 Serra grad Hunter Bishop was promoted Tuesday to San Francisco Triple-A affiliate Sacramento. The Giants’ first-round draft pick out of Arizona State in 2019, Bishop missed the 2023 season after undergoing elbow surgery. He returned this season to make his Double-A Richmond debut, slashing a modest .242/.314/.358 through 26 games. The 25-year-old outfielder got his first Triple-A start Tuesday for Sacramento, going 1 for 4 with a single and a stolen base in the River Cats’ 3-1 win over Dodgers Triple-A affiliate Oklahoma City.

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I attended the Giants game Sunday to witness their 6-5 win in 10 innings over the Cincinnati Reds.

While Giants fans are rightfully concerned, by and large, about the shoulder injury to center fielder Jung Hoo Lee, it was a doubly painful first inning to watch seeing as Giants starter Kyle Harrison hit Reds leadoff batter TJ Friedl with the first pitch of the game. Friedl was playing in just his sixth game of the year after returning from a wrist fracture. The Reds placed Friedl on the injured list Monday due to a broken thumb suffered on the hit by pitch.

On a personal note, I realized the loss of one of my great baseball joys as Sunday’s game went into extra innings. When I was a kid, nothing thrilled me more than a game going into extra innings. Even though I was a Giants fan through and through, if the Giants were batting in the bottom of the ninth with the score tied, I’d secretly root for them not to score so the game would continue into extra innings. Yes, even during the coldest of Candlestick Park night games.

Now, like with so many rules changes overrunning baseball in recent years, my love of extra innings has gone bye-bye, baby. With all due respect to Giants reliever Luke Jackson, who was brilliant in the top of the 10th, the youth-league softball inspired “ghost runner” starting the 10th inning at second base left me dreading extra innings Sunday.