Lancers baseball slips back into a losing streak

The Lancers baseball team are on another three-game losing streak after a solitary win broke up their previous seven games without a win.

Pasadena faced off in a three-game home stand this past week, losing each in a variation of ways.

Despite scoring eight runs while hosting Ventura at Brookside Park last Tuesday, the Lancers struggled to stop the barrage of runs coming out of the opposing team’s dugout.

Ventura started with five runs right out the gate, and added another four in the next inning.

Pasadena responded with a meager two runs, but those were quickly negated by the two runs scored by Ventura in the following inning.

Despite the Lancers picking up six additional runs through the game, it wasn’t enough to catch up. Ventura’s additional three runs in the ninth inning served only as salt on the wound.

Ventura walked away with more than double that of Pasadena, finishing 17-8.

Wednesday’s showdown against Glendale was quieter with the Lancer’s holding off Glendale’s initial run at the top of the game for the next five innings.

Pasadena didn’t have an issue getting runners on base, the problem they found themselves with was bringing them home.

“They just couldn’t get the bunt and into scoring position,” said Brad Cage, observer and fan of the Lancers. “We just couldn’t get any timely hits. And without that homerun, it would’ve been a close game.”

Cage was referring to the eighth inning homerun hit by Glendale with a runner on base that, combined with their fifth inning triple RBI, brought their score to four runs.

The Lancers rallied in the bottom of the ninth after getting a single and with one runner on base, third-baseman Sean Fassler’s double brought him home.

However, it was too little too late as the Lancers would go on to bring another runner on base with the inning, and game, ending again with two players in a scoring position.

“That’s baseball,” Lancer pitcher Anthony Mizahri said. “Some things didn’t go our way. We just need to go back to our roots.”

That didn’t seem to happen come the Friday game against Taft. If Glendale’s game was considered close, the 8-7 defeat would be considered an almost win.

Starting off strong in the second inning, the Lancers picked up two runs. However, Taft immediately responded with two runs of their own.

Pasadena lost their momentum, giving up one run in the fifth inning and an explosive five runs in the sixth to Taft.

Again, Pasadena was able to pull themselves together in the following two innings, picking up an accumulative five runs.

“We’ve been doing that a lot,” Justin Cage, catcher for the Lancers, said. “It was a tough loss. I’m tired of coming back. I want to win.”

Close games have been Pasadena’s modus operandi this season and the team hopes to turn around their record given there are still other a dozen more games left in the season.