The Humboldt Crabs continued their early-season roll Wednesday night at the Arcata Ballpark with a 16-7 decimation of the visiting Fresno A\u2019s on the strength of a 13-hit, 12-run-batted-in game in which they scored six in the second inning and poured it on in the fifth and the sixth inning with three and four runs, respectively. On Tuesday, the Crabs had blanked the A\u2019s 7-0 with a seven-strikeout, 5.1 inning outing from Ben Lukens, who gave up no walks and just four hits on the mound as the Crabs took advantage of seven A\u2019s errors.<\/p>\n
The Crabs are now 9-0 heading into a three-game weekend home series against the Rocklin Stonecutters in their last action before visiting the Lincoln Potters next week to start Pacific Empire League play.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday night, it was Alex Harrington leading the squad with four hits and three RBIs, also scoring two runs. Jason Arriola and Daniel Osbourne had three RBIs apiece, Arriola drawing three walks and scoring four times. Miles Oliver got the start and pitched 3.2 innings, giving up three runs (two earned), four walks, and five hits.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Lukens, Evan Miranda, and Nathan Bunyard had combined to shut out the A\u2019s. Humboldt scored two in the second and sixth innings, and three in the fifth. Jaden Shabry led the Crabs with three hits as Adam Enyart had two and two runs scored, Osbourne had two with one scored. Kawana Soares had a hit and two RBIs.<\/p>\n
\u201cBen Lukens did a spectacular job,\u201d said Crabs skipper Jeff Giacomini. \u201cHe was able to attack the strike zone with three pitches, and just was really polished. We were really happy to see that, and he\u2019s a guy we were excited about, but we\u2019re still feeling out the pitchers and where they best fit. He\u2019s starting to really prove himself as a starter, which is what we\u2019re going to need down the line. And the guys played great defense behind him, and our catching rotation works right with him, which was great to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Giacomini said the back end of the bullpen did great over the two games, including the set-up guys and closers that finished the job. \u201cOur defense is on-point, and I\u2019m really happy with the way the guys are swinging the bat right now,\u201d said the coach. The Crabs showed some opportunism, plating runs off A\u2019s miscues. \u201cI think the guys are playing really heads-up baseball, said Giacomini.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur baserunning has been on-point, it\u2019s all about taking advantage of the opposition\u2019s mistakes, and if they do, really capitalizing on those moments,\u201d he said. \u201cOur coaching staff keeps notes throughout the game, and part of rule number two is development. When stuff happens during the game, we make note of it and discuss it after. I think that\u2019s really been benefiting the guys, because there are moments in the game that do happen and we make sure we address those and the guys are learning from it. It\u2019s great to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, with the six-spot put up in the second inning by an offense that scored 16, Giacomini said, \u201cGuys are really starting to find their stride offensively, and it was a team effort. Obviously, there are really quality individual performances, but collectively as a team, we are swinging the bat when we need to. We really needed to add on and I thought that\u2019s probably the best Fresno A\u2019s team that they\u2019ve brought up to Humboldt (in the roughly one decade they\u2019ve been in existence). This was the best team they\u2019ve had, and they were good\u2026 as we move into league, that\u2019s the caliber that we want to face, that will give us the best preparation to go into league with.\u201d<\/p>\n
10 players registered a hit Wednesday and Harrington had four.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re really happy to have Alex,\u201d Giacomini said. \u201cHe\u2019s a great addition to the team, came on a little late, but our job and for his development is to get him ready for Stanford. He\u2019s fresh out of high school and Stanford placed him with us to get him prepped for college baseball. We\u2019re really happy to have him, that\u2019s the kind of guy we want, he loves to play the game, he works his tail off, a good kid with a lot of baseball savvy. He\u2019ll learn a lot this summer being around the guys and will be a very big contributor\u2026 I feel like we scored in every inning, and that\u2019s something we discuss, score early and often, and we applied pressure continuously throughout the game. As a coach, that\u2019s what you love to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe gave up a few, but we came right back at them and just went after them,\u201d he continued. \u201cI thought Miles Oliver did a really good job. Antonio Nordman (1.1 innings pitched, two unearned runs), he\u2019s coming back after an injury and we\u2019re building him up, a guy that has the potential to get up to 95 (miles per hour). We\u2019re going to need him down the stretch but he\u2019s on a program where he is building up to that, starting off with 25 and now 30 pitches. Eventually, he\u2019ll throw 40-50, and once that guy can find his stride, he\u2019s going to be a big contributor and throw in key moments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Giacomini said he thought a very special moment was getting Tanner Keys in the game. Liam Forsyth, one of the Crabs\u2019 catchers in the rotation, went down with a knee injury, but Keys was able to step in, having been around the ballpark for years, his father, Nate, being the squad\u2019s trainer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been our bullpen catcher, and we signed him to a six-day contract until our Oregon State catcher gets here,\u201d said Giacomini. \u201cTo see him come in the game and get a base hit, playing the last two innings at catcher, that was really special for him and the entire team. That was really cool to see and a special moment. He\u2019s dreamed of being a Crab and I\u2019m sure he\u2019s played that moment in his mind probably a thousand times. To see it happen and have him step up and get a hit, that was one of my favorite moments of the year so far.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heading into a Friday through Sunday series with Rocklin, Giacomini said his message was that, \u201cWe\u2019re a tough ballclub, and if we keep swinging the bat like we are and we keep doing well on the pitching and defensive sides, we\u2019ll be a tough club to beat. The fans will have another great weekend of baseball and I expect to be on the successful side of things at the end of the weekend. I hope we can keep this thing rolling and keep hitting our stride, being ready for league next week.<\/p>\n
Ken McCanless can be reached at 707-441-0526.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Humboldt Crabs continued their early-season roll Wednesday night at the Arcata Ballpark with a 16-7 decimation of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113,145324,181,23,11041,100,180,127],"class_list":["post-356738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-humboldt-crabs","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-local-sports","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}