Baseball: Select Anteaters enjoying success

Analytics are not overwhelming for Anteaters on the baseball diamond this summer, but a pair of UC Irvine veterans are producing impressive numbers.

Cameron Bishop, who will be a junior in the fall, has dazzled for the Corvallis (Ore.) Knights of the West Coast League. Bishop represented the South in the league’s All-Star Game on Tuesday in Longview, Wash., the lone UCI player to play in the game.

He pitched a scoreless inning to help the South earn a 4-0 victory, and was voted the Top Prospect in the game by 23 professional scouts in attendance.

This summer, Bishop, a 6-foot-5, 235-pound left-hander, has allowed just nine hits and one earned run in 22 innings for an 0.40 earned-run average. He has made five appearances for the Knights, four of them starts. He is 1-1, but has 29 strikeouts and has allowed just nine hits.

Bishop was 5-5 with a 4.61 ERA last spring for the ‘Eaters, for whom he started 15 games. He surrendered 76 hits and struck out 79 in 701/3 innings. He lost four of his last five starts and received a no-decision in the other.

His two best outings last season for UCI were wins at Tennessee and at home against UC Riverside. In Knoxville, Bishop allowed four hits in 62/3 shutout innings to earn the victory in a 2-0 triumph. Against Riverside, he allowed one run on four hits in 72/3 innings and posted a season-best eight strikeouts.

With the departure of Elliot Surrey, a second-team all-conference performer as a senior, Bishop is a candidate to assume the Friday night starting role next season.

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Another UCI player having a strong summer is outfielder-designated hitter Adam Alcantara, who earned first-team All-Big West Conference recognition and ended the 2016 season on a tear.

In his season-ending 14-game hitting streak last spring, Alcantara hit .436 in 56 at-bats with one home run, eight doubles and 17 RBIs. In his final 34 games, he hit .380 and was named Big West Player of the Week the final week of the regular season.

Competing for the Victoria (British Columbia, Canada) HarbourCats of the West Coast League, Alcantara was hitting .340 in 50 at-bats through Wednesday. He had two homers and nine RBIs.

Alcantara, who will be a senior next season, is the only player remaining from UCI’s 2014 College World Series team.

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UCI supporters may be encouraged by the performance of closer Calvin Faucher in the prestigious Cape Cod League. Through Wednesday, Faucher, playing for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox, had allowed just five hits and four earned runs in 13 innings. He was 1-1 and did not have a save and had fanned 16, while walking only three.

Faucher compiled eight saves in his first season with the ‘Eaters in 2016. He was 3-1 with an 0.71 ERA with 34 strikeouts in 251/3 innings.

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Continuing his international run with the United States collegiate national team is UCI star Keston Hiura.

Entering Team USA’s scheduled five-game schedule in Cuba that began Saturday and continues through Wednesday, Hiura, was hitting .290 in 31 at-bats with two home runs, five RBIs and one stolen base.

Hiura, just as he was the latter portion of the UCI schedule, has been limited to designated hitter duty, due to a balky elbow that he hurt throwing a ball from the outfield last spring.

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Just this week, I dusted off some DVDs of the 2007 College World Series to review UCI’s 5-4 victory over Cal State Fullerton in what, at that time, was the longest game in CWS history.

The 13-inning contest that lasted five hours, 40 minutes, was UCI’s first victory in the College World Series and helped it extend its stay to four games, going 2-2 and finishing third in a year that Oregon State emerged victorious.

The Cal State Fullerton game was remarkable for a number of reasons, one of which being that every position player and the starting pitcher for UCI in that game went on to play professional baseball.

Inlcuded in that group, were future major leaguers Bryan Petersen, who had the game-winning single, and winning pitcher Dylan Axelrod, who threw 42/3 scoreless innings and allowed just one hit.

Future major leaguer Christian Bergman watched from the bench and started a game in Omaha that season.

Noteworthy also were the six errors committed by UCI in the game, though all four Cal State Fullerton runs were earned.

The on-field highlight may have been senior second baseman Cody Cipriano’s game-tying home run in the seventh that knotted the score at 4-4. Cipriano’s blast, his 13th of the season to set a new school single-season record (he later upped it to 14), ended a 14-pitch at-bat against Titans starting pitcher Jeff Kaplan.

The bomb, several rows up in the right-field bleachers at venerable Rosenblatt Stadium, chased Kaplan and promoted Cal State Fullerton to summon Adam Jorgensen, who began his high school career at Costa Mesa High, before finishing at La Quinta, from the bullpen.

Cipriano scored the winning run, when Petersen singled up the middle just after Taylor Holiday was thrown out at the plate trying to score from second on a single to left field by Matt Morris.

Morris was four for seven in the game, while Petersen was three for six. Holiday was two for four with a two-run home run as UCI had 15 hits.

Then-coach Dave Serrano’s ‘ Eaters had 15 hits, four more than the Titans and both teams left 16 runners on base.

Eight players were hit by pitches, including six UCI batters. Holiday, a senior first baseman, was plunked three times and then-sophomore shortstop Ben Orloff, now UCI’s associate head coach, was hit twice.

The other position starters for UCI that went on to play in the minors were center fielder Ollie Linton, catcher Aaron Lowenstein and third baseman Tyler Vaughn. Starting pitcher Seth Etheridge also had a stint in the minors.