Good, bad come from 15-inning marathon

Thursday night's 4-3 win over the San Diego Stars in 15 innings revealed both negatives and positives for the Yuba-Sutter Gold Sox.

After committing a total of 12 errors over four games heading into Thursday, the Gold Sox recorded just one against the Stars, but the cost of the juggled routine grounder was quickly nullified when second baseman Hunter Martinez redeemed himself by recording a 4-3 inning-ending double play to hold off the Stars in the 13th inning.

Brock Stassi also made an aggressive move on a shallow fly ball and eventually dove to record the first out in the 14th inning.

"There were a lot of positives we took out of that game," said Gold Sox manager Jack Johnson. "We came out great defensively," noting both Martinez' and Stassi's putouts.

Johnson was also pleased with some of the players who, although struggled from the plate early on, battled and produced down the stretch.

"We had a couple of guys who had some poor and selfish at-bats early string together some good at-bats late to help us win the game," he said.

The Gold Sox patched up the defense, but it was the bats that were rusty.

"We pitched OK. We pitched a little lucky at times. We had too many pitches up in the zone against experienced hitters," Johnson said. "As far as hitting goes, we just had a lack of execution."

Despite mustering just three hits through eight innings, the Gold Sox finally got a timely single in the bottom of the 15th inning. Nick Ramos walked to lead off the bottom half, Martinez singled and Bret Ringer knocked in Ramos to end a game that ran 4 hours and 13 minutes.

The game was the longest, both in time and innings, in Gold Sox history.

The Gold Sox had a tremendous opportunity to score in the 13th

inning, but getting key hits wasn't exactly their strong suit. Stassi beat out a bunt to lead off the inning, Ramos did the same and Martinez walked to load the bases for Ringer. But the designated hitter grounded into a fielder's choice that pegged Stassi trying to score. Then Kyle Loretelli struck out and Blake Crosby hit into an inning-ending groundout.

The Gold Sox stranded 18 runners on base.

"We didn't make good adjustments at the plate and had too many strikeouts," Johnson said. "You're going to have these types of nights."

While the Gold Sox struggled to produce timely hits, they'll take the 14 walks it took to edge the Stars. The Sox also struck out 14 times.

The Gold Sox's best chance to take a lead before extra innings was in the eighth after Loretelli, Jeff McCall and Jack Mikel all walked, and with the bases loaded, two outs and a full count, Stassi walked in the tying run.

Ramos then hit a comebacker to the mound to end the inning.

Contact sports reporter Bryan DeMain at bdemain@appeal-democrat.com or at 749-4796.