Baseball: Controversy Mars Tigers Win Over Titans

The San Marino baseball team hasn’t enjoyed much success this season. A barrage of early season injuries erased the optimism from the preseason, and a 1-6 start to Rio Hondo League play put an end to any postseason aspirations.

In the top of the seventh inning of Friday’s game at South Pasadena, however, the Titans were finally blessed with some good fortune.

But their good luck quickly took a controversial turn as the Tigers ultimately prevailed 5-4 in a game that saw San Marino head coach Mack Paciorek, hitting coach Freddie Diaz and pitcher Alan Felix all get ejected.

With a runner on second and the game tied at 4, Matt Wofford sent an Anthony D’Oro pitch deep to left field. South Pasadena’s Matt Pinson turned and sprinted in an attempt to chase down the fly ball. The curving ball met Pinson’s glove right when the junior crashed into the left-field fence — the collision sending both Pinson and the ball to the turf.

It wasn’t completely clear whether the ball hit the ground, but Pinson popped up and threw the ball to second, a move that seemed to be a concession that he didn’t make the catch.

For a second, the play was ruled a double, and San Marino held a one-run lead. But South Pasadena coach Anthony Chevrier protested, and the call was overturned after a discussion between home plate umpire Chris McNeese and field umpire Dave Hargrave.

Inning over.

South Pasadena’s Tony Veiller then hit a walkoff infield single to score junior Dylan Trimarchi and give the Tigers the win.

“I saw him catch the ball and hit the fence,” Chevrier said. “My assumption was he was thinking it was one out. And he was throwing the ball in. That’s what I saw.

“Everyone has a different angle on it. … I couldn’t tell you exactly if he caught it and dropped it, but from what I saw he caught it.”

It was clear by Paciorek’s reaction to McNeese’s reversal that he saw the play differently. Paciorek immediately bolted out of the Titans dugout and got into McNeese’s face.

Paciorek continued to jaw with McNeese for the better part of five minutes and was eventually ejected from the game.

Felix was also tossed from the game for giving McNeese a few choice words after the Tigers scored their winning run.

"It's all a part of the play,” Paciorek said. “It's a catch-in-contact with the fence and the ball pops loose. You're over complicating a simple play. … Let these kids play baseball. The ball came loose, no question about it. It was very easy to see and very simple call."

Asked specifically if he saw the ball hit the ground Paciorek stuck to his original story.

“Everyone saw it,” he said. “The kid went to scramble for it. Every action was that of a misplayed ball. It was the field umpire's call, and we're going to let a guy 100 feet away change it? I just think it's unfortunate. These kids worked way too hard to let it come down to something like that."

Pinson said that when he crashed into the fence, his body fell forward with the ball and his free hand kept the ball in his mitt. He added that he understood if the Titans felt the ball hit the ground.

“They’re our rivals,” Pinson said. “They’re of course going to say it. But I’m find with it.”

Before the seventh-inning drama, the Tigers (11-11, 6-3 in the RHL) and Titans went back and forth in an exciting but error-filled game as the two squads combined for seven defensive gaffes.

South Pasadena took a 2-0 lead after one inning on RBI hits from Trimarchi and Joe Harmon. San Marino then rallied to score one run in the second on back-to-back throwing errors by the Tigers, and then two more in the third on Mark Chen’s RBI double and an RBI groundout from Felix.

South Pasadena evened the game in the third and took a 4-3 lead when Harmon drove in Trimarchi with a fifth-inning RBI single.

San Marino (5-15, 2-7) then tied it back up in the top of the sixth on back-to-back doubles by Felix and Garrett Young.

With the win the Tigers maintain their hold on second place in the Rio Hondo League, setting up a showdown with Monrovia next Wednesday at 3 p.m.