Burlingame bunt looms large in PAL opener

Burlingame sophomore left-hander Noah Larkin settled in after a rocky first to work five innings and earn the win. And while Burlingame swung it well to produce 11 hits, the game hung in the balance on No. 9 hitter Keunho Kim’s RBI bunt single to give the Panthers the lead in the fourth.

“We can swing the barrels pretty good,” Burlingame manager Shawn Scott said. “But you still have to understand that the game of baseball for us is being able to hit and run, steal bases, do little things that you’re supposed to do on the field. Then it can lead to the bigger things.”

Burlingame had just tied it when Larkin singled on a 0-2 pitch with two runners on, which would have loaded the bases. But the SHP outfield kicked the ball around, allowing Thomas McClure to score from second on the error to tie it 3-3.

Then with runners at the corners and no outs, Kim bunted a short pop-up toward the mound. It would have taken a spectacular play by SHP starting pitcher Parker Isaacson to catch it on the fly. But had he done so, it would have started an easy triple play.

“Thinking about it now in my head, I think I had a chance,” Isaacson said. “And then I could have been quicker throwing it first base.”

Instead, the ball fell in, Kim beat Isaacson’s throw to first base for a single with Brendan Magalong scoring to give the Panthers a 4-3 lead.

“When the ball first went up in the air while I was running I thought the pitcher was going to grab it,” Kim said. “When I saw he missed it, I didn’t know what the situation was that was going on. But I was just running towards first. Then I saw … we got runs on the scoreboard, so I was like, anything works.”

Then the floodgates opened as Burlingame sent 10 batters to the plate amid a five-run inning.

“That was really nice,” Larkin said. “It was good to finally get out there with some runs on the board.”

Issacson departed after Kim’s single with SHP reliever Reece Lindquist entering. The senior right-hander nearly navigated the Gators out of the inning, opening his outing with a strikeout and a fly out to center.

But with two on and two outs, Lindquist induced a grounder to the left side of the infield off the bat of Taylor Clark, but the SHP shortstop airmailed first baseman, allowing courtesy runner Cameron Kwong to score on the play. Burlingame cleanup hitter Emilio Flores followed with a two-run single. 

“It was embarrassing, period,” SHP manager Anthony Granato said. “We got out to an early lead and we got overconfident, lost focused and we stopped competing. Once they got back in the game we started to panic and guys couldn’t keep their composure. And it is what it is.”

The Panthers scored four more times in the fifth. Clark drew a bases-loaded walk on a borderline 3-2 pitch to knock Lindquist out of the game. Then against right-hander Alex Nissenberg, Flores belted a two-run double to left. One more run came across on an infield error by SHP.

“I think it was a weird defensive game early for both programs that usually pride themselves on catching the baseball,” Scott said. “Fortunately we caught more baseballs late than they did.”

Burlingame reliever Tyler Moniz-Witten replaced Larkin and battled through a jam in the sixth. SHP loaded the bases with one out on a hit batsman by Will Moldow, and back-to-back walks to Teddy Purcell and Enzo Polloni. After a trip to the mound by Scott, Moniz-Witten started popping the glove for a strikeout and a foul pop out to stand the bases loaded.

In the sixth, Burlingame reliever Dominic Caprini loaded the bases with three straight walks. McClure then entered, and hit Moldow with a pitch to force home Ryan Mo. McClure settled down though, coaxing a short fly out before getting called third strike to end the game with a punch-out.

The two teams are scheduled to rematch Friday in finale of the two-game series. SHP (0-1, 3-4-1) will send senior ace Nate Fleischli to the mound to try to even the series for the reigning PAL Bay Division champs.

“I think we’ve got a lot of [pitchers] that can do the job,” Granato said, “and definitely enough guys who are good enough to win in this league. It just depends if they want to show up. … It’s as little bit disheartening when you’re trying to defend a championship and you don’t feel guys have that mentality.”