SBL Bucs drop tight contest vs OC Pirates

Jakob Amudo pitches against the OC Pirates at LA Valley College on June 18th, 2022. Photo by Maddy Whiting

The SBL Bucs lost 4-2 to the Orange County Pirates Saturday Afternoon at Monarch Field after a rough fourth inning and a slow day for the Bucs’ offense.

The Bucs started out the game well, with Robert Pitts hitting a leadoff double in the bottom of the 1st and Kai Moran hitting a sac fly to score Pitts and give the Bucs an early 1-0 lead.

Bucs’ starting LHP Ian Nord would also pitch four scoreless innings before running into trouble in the fifth, allowing three consecutive singles and walking another batter, which resulted in three runs after his exit

Reliever Jakub Amado inheirented a bases loaded situation and allowed a run of his own in the inning, which ended with the Pirates taking a 4-2 lead. Amado induced soft contact but the Bucs were unable to convert those batted balls into outs.

“We didn’t play defense well behind Jakub, and that was the difference you got one inning where we didn’t play defense well,” Head Coach Evan O’Meara said.

Amado would pitch three more innings after his entrance in the top of the 5th, and each of those innings would be scoreless ones for the Pirates, as Amado provided stellar relief after being put in a tough position.

Max Aude would hit a leadoff double and then score on an error in the bottom of the 5th, but the Bucs offense couldn’t add any more runs for the remainder of the contest. That hit was one of two one the day for Aude, who was playing in his first game in two weeks and first with the Bucs as a team.

“Felt good, first time coming back in like two weeks, so just trying to get the timing down and saw a few pitches to hit so I felt good today,” Aude said.

The SBL Bucs will look to bounce back tomorrow morning when they host the California Field Rats at 11am right at Monarch Field.