Burlingame holds off Sequoia to move into first place in PAL Bay Division baseball standings

“I was amped up,” O’Grady said. “That was a great feeling. These are kind of like division rivals for us. We knew these guys are good. We have respect for these guys, but we also kind of hate ’em. So, right when I struck that guy out, I was amped. I loved it.”

The Panthers (5-2 PAL Bay, 11-6 overall) are now 5-0 in one-run games this year. More importantly, this week’s two-game series sweep of Sequoia moves Burlingame into a first-place tie in the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division with the King’s Academy, after King’s loss Thursday to Menlo-Atherton opened the door.

With seven league games remaining on the schedule, Burlingame closes the regular season with a two-game series against the King’s Academy. Until then, standing watching isn’t something Panthers manager Shawn Scott is particularly interested in. The 16th year skipper is taking the fundamental approach, playing them one game at a time.

“You win the first one, you’ve got to look at winning the second one,” Scott said. “That’s what we talked about. It’s really tough to sweep in this league, and for us to walk away with one, we are fortunate.”

It’s impossible to argue with Scott’s approach, as fundamentals are precisely why Burlingame is sitting in first place at the midway mark of the league slate. Despite the Panthers batting just .248 as a team, the team’s pitching and defense both shined against Sequoia — especially Friday, as Burlingame turned three double plays in the game.

One thing the Panthers haven’t done this year? Hit for power. So, when junior Slade Flores and senior Drew Gall put on a power show, each connecting for solo home runs, it absolutely lit up the Panthers’ dugout.

“If definitely is a momentum booster and just uplifts the whole team,” Flores said. “Yeah, definitely a good way to keep tagging on good at-bats.”

Flores’ solo shot to left-center in the fifth gave Burlingame a 6-2 advantage. After Sequoia manufactured a run in the sixth on a sacrifice fly from sophomore Jackson Tetley, the Panthers got the run back in the top of the seventh on a solo blast just to the pull side of center field to make it 7-3.

As it turned out, Burlingame needed every run to hold off slugging Sequoia in the bottom of the seventh.

Senior slugger Morgan Winfield has totaled two game-winning grand slams this season. With Flores on in relief of Burlingame starting pitcher Daniel MacMillan, and the Ravens trailing by four, Winfield batted in the seventh with only two runners on. That didn’t stop the Saint Mary’s College-bound power hitter from flipping one out of the yard, covering the outside half of the plate to crush a three-run shot to center field to close the score to 7-6.

“Flores made some good pitches,” Scott said. “You have to give Winfield credit for going down and getting that ball. He smashed that ball.”

With twin brothers Mario and Nolan Fausto due up — while Winfield has seven home runs on the season, the Fausto brothers gave combined for seven homers — there was a feeling the Ravens might not have to load the bases to make some magic.

“We’ve had three grand slams this year in the seventh or eighth inning,” Ravens manager Mike Doyle said. “So, certainly, where we were in the order, we knew home runs were possible. And, honestly, I thought there was a decent chance that either Mario or Nolan would go deep, because those guys have hit a lot of home runs as well. So, after Morgan hit his, yeah ... we were right back in it.”

But the Ravens did go on to load the bases. Cleanup hitter Mario Fausto reached on an infield throwing error, and Burlingame turned to O’Grady for Nolan Fausto to single through the middle. After O’Grady recorded a strikeout for the second out of the inning, a wild pitch moved the Fausto brothers up, and Tetley went on to walk to load the bases.

O’Grady, though, bounced back with a steady diet of fastballs to notch a three-pitch strikeout earn his third save. It is the right-hander’s third save of the year, and his second in as many days. He also recorded the save in Thursday’s 2-1 win over Sequoia in Burlingame.

“I love it,” O’Grady said. “If I’m throwing that little pitches on the day before, I’ve got trust in myself to go out and throw strikes, and strike people out. So, for sure, I love closing back-to-back days.”

MacMillan worked six innings to earn the win, allowing three runs (two earned) on five hits and five walks, while striking out five. His record improves to 4-3.

The biggest blemish on MacMillan’s day came in the third inning when, with Sequoia trailing 5-0, Mario Fausto blasted a two-run no-doubt home run to left. Otherwise, Burlingame’s tall right-hander controlled the rhythm of the game with his turn-and-burn pitching tempo.

Scott said not only did he not consider letting MacMillan start the seventh inning, he nearly didn’t let him pitch in the game at all as the junior pitcher had been battling illness all week.

“I was even second-guessing myself of starting him,” Scott said. “But he’s got a cool demeanor out there. So, I just kept my eye on him and watched him be effectively wild and get himself a ‘W.’”

The Panthers used a five-run second to take the lead for good, capitalizing on two errors by the Sequoia infield.

Cleanup hitter Oscar Osuna Lopez opened the inning with a load double over the center fielder’s head. Flores followed with an RBI single to get the Panthers on the board. Then, after Aaron Lau got hit by a pitch, and Preet Mallen reached on an infield fielding error, Burlingame cleared the bases without hitting the ball out of the infield.

Charlie Cheng hit a high chopper to the left side of the mound, and with both Sequoia starting pitcher Logan Deitrich and the third baseman Winfield converging, Deitrich wisely peeled off as the 6-3 Winfield came charging over the middle. Winfield, though, had to sidestep Deitrich as he unleashed an off-balance throw off his back foot. With his throw sailing down the right-field line, all three baserunners scored. Grayson Howard then drove home Cheng with an RBI groundout to make it 5-0.

“That hurt,” Doyle said of the two errors. “But we almost clawed our way out of the mistakes we made early, and we’ve just got to take what we did in the seventh inning and play that way going forward.”

Sequoia (3-5, 11-7) now falls to sixth place in the eight-team PAL Bay. However, the Ravens are just one of two teams to have defeated the league’s other first-place team, the King’s Academy.

“Sequoia’s on a comeback,” Winfield said. “Our record is still, I think, decent. (In) league, probably not that great. But we’ve been giving these teams wins — like, errors, walks, all that stuff. I think we’re one of the better hitting teams in the PAL Bay right now, and I if we come to practice Monday, walk in, work hard ... come back with more energy in the first inning, through the seventh, I think we have the potential to sweep a lot of people.”