NMMI’s starting pitcher for Game 3 of the four-game series vs. Otero JC was another left-hander, Carlos Ortiz. Ortiz got the complete game win throwing all five innings of a run-rule shortened game, scattering four hits and three runs while collecting five strikeouts.
Karen Boehler
NMMI Sports Press
Game 4 starter Kyle Bosworth also had five Ks, in just 3.1 innings, but gave up five runs in the 6-4 loss.
ARTESIA — For a successful season, the baseball saying goes, you want to win at home and split on the road. So, even though the Broncos lost the last game of the four-game series vs. Otero Sunday, they had a successful 3-1 weekend.
But because they had a tough opening home series, they’re one a game shy of the .500 mark, sitting at 3-5 on the young season. Still, for the most part, Sunday’s 13-3 victory and close 6-4 loss to the Rattlers made coach Chris Cook feel OK.
“You never go into a series expecting to sweep; that’s not the mindset,” he said. “The mindset is one at a time. When you’re 3-0, you go into the next game the same way you did the first one: you expect to put up a fight and win. We kept it close, but without a few mistakes in their part, and without a few free bases on their part, we wouldn’t even have been 4-6. It would have been more like 1-6.”
With Game 2 still a few hours away, NMMI pounded Otero in a five-inning mercy-rule game in the opener. The visitors went up 2-0 in the first inning on a walk and RBI double, but other than one more run in the third — on a ground rule double, stolen base and sacrifice fly — that’s all Carlos Ortiz gave up. The sophomore allowed only four hits while striking out five in the shortened complete game.
During a Rattler pitching change after the Broncos loaded the bases in Game 4, the NMMI runners congregate at third to talk strategy with head coach Chris Cook.
The defense was also perfect, and while the offense was a bit slow to get started — they trailed 3-0 after 2-1/2 — once they started they never let up.
The Broncos sent 12 runners to the plate in the third inning, scoring nine runs on six hits, four walks and a Rattler error. By the end of the inning, every batter but one had scored at least once, with three doubles and three singles helping get the job done, to make it 9-3 NMMI.
The Broncos added a solo run in the fourth on a walk and two singles, then closed out the game in the fifth with a one-out error that saw Justin Felix go all the way to third on a dropped fly ball in the outfield. Felix scored on a single by John Jensen; Marion McLean then singled; Pancho Mariscal reached on an error that scored Jensen; Alex Howard singled to load the bases; then Winston Welch scored the game-winning run on a walk-off walk.
Howard led the scoring with a 3-for-3 game, one run scored and 2 RBIs. McLean was 3-for-4 with 2 RBIs and runs scored; and Welch was 2-for-3 with 3 RBIs and one run.
Sunday’s nightcap was the only loss for the Broncos, and again, the bats couldn’t bring the runs in when needed.
“We didn’t do a very good job offensively in Game 4, and they did a better job on the mound as far as executing off-speed pitches,” Cook said. “We didn’t do a good job of being on top of fast balls early in counts and doing things you need to do offensively to combat good off speed. … We let them score six; which is still not a terrible job. We gave them some free bases in an inning and a couple of balls dropped for them, but still, we’ve got to be able to score seven runs or more and that’s a game we should have found a way to win.”
After the Rattlers went up 1-0 in the top of the second on a home run by iron-man catcher Hunter Junge, NMMI matched that in the bottom of the stanza on two singles and two walks, but the Broncos left the bases loaded.
The Institute broke things open in the third on a double, two singles, two wild pitches, an error and a walk, but that was all the bats would do the rest of the nine-inning game. Meanwhile, the Rattlers scored four off starter Kyle Bosworth, making it 5-4, then added an insurance run in the seventh.
“Credit them for not packing it in,” Cook said of Otero. “They pitched it pretty well in that game and kept us off balance.”
He said the bullpen “was fantastic all weekend and that’s a very, very good sign for us. We’ve just got to get a little more locked in offensively and I think we’ll be doing what we need to do.”
With NMMI Field getting close to completion, the Broncos will host Dodge City, Kans., Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the New Mexico Junior College ballpark in Hobbs. Cook doesn’t think another new park will be a handicap.
“The sun angle will be different at their place, so that’s the biggest difference, other than the park will play bigger and it’ll be aluminum bats,” he said. “We’re going to face another really young team in Dodge City, coming off a World Series appearance last year. But they’re very young. We’re going to have to swing it and I imagine it’ll be another offensive weekend for everybody, so we’ve got to be prepared.”
