Redwood snaps out of it its hitting slump

The Redwood High baseball team entered Wednesday’s opening round of the North Coast Section Division II baseball playoffs mired in an interminable team-wide batting slump.

After four innings against visiting Livermore, the Giants were still drawing a blank and trailed 3-0 after giving up three unearned runs in the third.

Without warning in the fifth inning, No. 5 Redwood broke out of its hitting doldrums, scoring six times on the way to a 6-3 victory against No. 12 Livermore on a near-perfect day for baseball in Larkspur.

The Giants (18-8), who broke a two-game losing streak, face either No. 4 Ukiah or No. 13 Vintage on Saturday — time and place still to be determined at press time.

“It was a long road back out of that slump,” said shortstop Danil Wells, whose two-run, bases-loaded single finally cracked the seal on the Giants’ vacuum-packed hitting woes. “I knew I had to get that hit. I went up there ready to barrel the ball and get a hit past the infield.”

The base knock was sweet amends for Wells, whose two throwing errors in the third inning led to Livermore’s three-spot rally.

“You have to have a short memory in baseball,” said Wells, who made perfect pegs from deep shortstop in the final inning to account for two of the final three outs. “You have to cut the mistakes out of your thoughts quickly and go on to the next at-bat and the next play.”

Wells’ clutch hit seemed to ignite Redwood’s bats as Rory Coughlan and winning pitcher Rory Minty encored with run-scoring singles.

Minty, who seemed headed for a tough-luck loss, instead went the distance, scattering seven hits and striking out five. The crafty lefty did not walk a batter after the first inning and retired the final five Cowboys in order to lock up the win.

“Rory just goes out there and battles until the last pitch,” Wells said. “He kept us in it. He’s a dog. He’s always there when you need him.”

Minty, who used an array of off-speed stuff to keep the Livermore lineup off balance, faced his final threat in the fourth.

With two outs, back-to-back errors by Wells — one fielding and one throwing — sparked new life in the Cowboys when No. 3 hitter Bobby Alvear, who had singled in his previous at-bat, stepped to the plate.

Minty induced a grounder to Wells’ right, but this time the rangy shortstop made a nice running play on the grounder and fired to third for the force out to end the inning.

“I don’t think our infield has made five errors all season,” Redwood coach Mike Firenzi said. “This team plays defense. But that’s baseball, I guess. Maybe we had to sacrifice some fielding to finally get our bats going.”

Wells led Redwood’s six-hit attack with a pair of singles. After struggling to come up with big hits for the last several outings, the Giants left just five runners on base against Livermore.

“We really worked on our hitting this week,” Firenzi said. “I must have thrown 500 batting practice pitches yesterday. It was nice to see us come up with some clutch hits today so that the team knows they can do it. We live to fight another day and that’s what it takes in the NCS playoffs.”