Burlingame sweeps reigning Bay champs

With the win, Burlingame (2-0 PAL Bay, 4-1 overall) opens Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division play with a two-game sweep of the reigning league champions. The Panthers also topped SHP 11-4 in Wednesday’s league opener.

“[Flores] was really good today,” Burlingame manager Shawn Scott said. “He’s been extremely focused this year, which he always is. But this year, for some reason, he’s been really focused on his pitching. And it’s paid off.”

The big right-hander needed just 79 pitches to finish off his first complete game of the season. He stayed aggressive to the strike zone even when he was in peril.

In the fifth inning, he faced his toughest challenge when SHP (0-2, 3-5-1) pushed two runs across to cut Burlingame’s lead to 5-2 with one out. But Flores limited the damage, inducing a grounder to third baseman Chase Funkhouser, who started an around-the-horn double play to end the inning.

“Just try to keep the ball low and try to get a groundball there,” Flores said. “Get a double play and get my infield a groundball.”

Fleischli’s day was going fairly smoothly through the first four frames, although Burlingame jumped out to an early 1-0 lead. In the first, Preston Lau led off with a double and moved to third on a wild pitch. Jordi Aguliar then batted him in on a groundout to second.

Flores and Fleischli matched zeroes for the next three frames. But Fleischli’s struggles to get strike one were an early indicator of the Burlingame’s big fifth inning to come.

“I didn’t think he did a bad job,” SHP manager Anthony Granato said. “I feel like he fell behind a lot of batters. They’re an aggressive fastball hitting team and, when you do that, they’re going to have an opportunity to time you up and get some hits.”

Command issues caught up with Fleischli in the fifth. The bottom of the Panthers’ order, Thomas McClure and Kaunho Kim, drew back-to-back walks to open the frame. Lau bunted them over.

McClure then scored on a wild pitch, one that didn’t get too far away from Gators catcher Will Moldow, who got the ball to Fleischli covering the plate ahead of the runner, but the ball clipped off Fleischli’s glove allowing McClure to slide across cleanly. With the SHP infield drawn in, Aguilar then delivered an RBI single with a liner over the shortstop, giving the Gators a 3-0 lead and knocking Fleischli out of the game.

“We as coaches, we try to shorten the infield if we can,” Scott said “If you shorten the infield, you get those hops that go through. You get guys pulled out of position. … So, we always try to do that and fortunately we’ve been able to do that early.”

Facing SHP reliever Enzo Pollioni, the Panthers went on to load the bases. Flores then helped his own cause, shooting an RBI single to left. With the bases still loaded, Alex McMaster grounded out to drive home another, giving the Panthers a 5-0 lead.

According to Scott, Burlingame’s red-hot approach at the plate through its first two league games is a testament to the team putting in work in the batting cage despite not being able to get on the field much in recent weeks due to the consistent rains that have wreaked havoc on local baseball schedules.

“Our kids have been working hard,” Scott said. “As everyone in our league has with the situation with the rain, our kids have done a really good job in the cage of what we’ve been preaching of what we have to do, the type of hitters we are. They’ve done a good job so far.”

SHP got on the board in the bottom of the fifth. Peter Desler led off with a double to right, then Teddy Purcell drove him home with a double to left-center. Purcell then came around to score on an infield error.

Burlingame got the runs back, though, with single tallies in the sixth and seventh.

In the bottom of the seventh, Flores opened the frame with his fifth strikeout of the day. SHP went on to get two runners on with two outs. But Flores looked to have plenty left in the tank, inducing a flyout to center to end it.

“Once you’re feeling pumped up, you just get a little energy at the end,” Flores said.

With the win, the senior right-hander improves his record to 2-0. Fleischli falls to 1-3.

After finishing the 2018 season with an 11-3 record in PAL Bay play to win the league title, SHP is off to an 0-2 start this year.

“It’s always a grind,” Granato said. “Our league every year is a grind. And it’s always going to come down to one or two games. Every game, obviously, matters. We dug ourselves into a bit of a hole and we’ve got to find a way to work our way out of it.”