San Diego City tops Vaqueros again, 4-1

SBCC's offense remained stagnant on Saturday and the Vaqueros committed five errors in a 4-1 loss to San Diego City at Pershing Park.

Santa Barbara (3-4) dropped its third straight and has scored just one run in 18 innings the last two days. The Knights (5-3) have won five in a row.

Antonio Garcia turned in a strong six innings, limiting the Vaqueros to one run (unearned) on five hits with five strikeouts and a walk.

SBCC took a 1-0 lead in the first when Owen Crevelt beat out an infield hit, went to second on a throwing error by the third baseman and scored on Alonzo Rubalcaba's RBI single through the left side.

The Knights tied it with an unearned run in the second. Jack Early singled to left and was sacrificed to second by Jorge Lucero. He went to third when SBCC starter Sebastian Kirchner threw a pickoff attempt into center field and scored on a throwing error by third baseman Trevor Davis.

"Losing back-to-back games and only scoring one run at home, I don't know if that's ever happened since I've been here," said Walker, who's starting his ninth season as head coach. "We didn't play catch, obviously, with five errors, we gave five free baserunners and we punched out seven more times. It's kind of the same thing as Friday (when they lost 1-0 to San Diego).

"Our pitchers did a good enough job. There were just too many balls through the 5-6 hole. You can look at those as seeing-eye hits and you can also look at those as being out of position. Plus our shortstop and third baseman don't dive for anything. You still have to put the ball in play, which they did more than we did.

"Our two-strike hitting approach was a little bit better today. I guess you're happy that we only struck out seven times instead of 12 or 14."

Matthew Strother turned in three strong relief innings for the Vaqueros until the sixth when a mishandled fly ball by center fielder Hunter Call ignited a three-run uprising. Lucero and Israel Tafolla delivered RBI singles and pinch-hitter Nic Ayala brought home Lucero with a groundout to short.

Early went 2-2 and scored two runs for the Knights. Leadoff hitter Ryan Guardino was 2-4 and Davis went 2-3 for the Vaqueros.

SBCC had runners on first and third with two out in the seventh but lefty reliever Conner Guise struck out Call to end the threat.

"Hitting is going to come and go," said Walker. "We haven't taken enough competitive team at-bats to score. You can't win many games with five errors and five free passes.

"We need to put the ball in play and not have a swing-and-miss parade at the plate. It's pretty simple: You've gotta put the ball in play and play catch. That's pretty much what we've been talking about all season. Maybe we'll put some other guys in some different positions."

Brandon Lawrence made the defensive play of the year in the seventh with a leaping grab of a line drive off the bat of Ethan Workinger and a dive to the second-base bag to double up the runner and complete an unassisted double play.

"I thought that would spark us," said Walker. "Our dugout's been good, we're into it and we're close, we're just not performing right now."

The Vaqueros hope to salvage the third game of the three-game series with the Knights on Sunday. The start time has been moved to 12 p.m. to avoid possible rainshowers.