Royals open season with three consecutive victories

It was a good week of baseball for the Mountain Home Royals, which opened its American Legion Class A schedule with three wins last week.

Royals 9

Barons 4

The Mountain Home Royals opened their 2009 American Legion Class A baseball season with a 9-4 win over the Boise Barons on May 26 at Bishop Kelly.

The first five Royals batters got hits and scored in the first inning as Mountain Home erupted for five runs.

The Barons answered with four runs in the fourth inning to cut the lead to 5-4, but Mountain Home added two in the sixth and seventh both to push the lead to a 9-4 final.

Royals head baseball coach Mark Cotton was pleased to open the season with a win.

"We had moments where it looked like we were going to have a really good season, and we had a lull in the middle of the game where it looked like, if we don't get our stuff together, it's going to be a long season.

"Hopefully, when we come out on Friday, we're intense for all 14 innings of the doubleheader and get our bats going a little more.

"I know we had some hits, but our approach at the plate was a little iffy. The bottom of the order didn't hit very well for us, so we need some of the younger guys to step up and fill some shoes. We've had a lot of people leave, so we've got to have other guys step in and swing the sticks for us."

Brock Morris and Tom Hennessey both had three hits and an RBI, Ricky Lee and Ricky Baker both had two hits, Baker a double and two RBIs. Lee had one RBI.

Erick Christiansen, Jake Hennessey and David Bitrick also had hits. Christiansen had a triple and two RBIs. Jake Hennessey also had an RBI.

Eric Christiansen picked up the win with four innings of work. Just one of the four runs he gave up was earned, and he struck out five batters. Ricky Baker got the save with three innings of scoreless and hitless relief. He struck out four.

Royals 8, 9

Pirates 2, 2

The Royals hosted Glenns Ferry for a doubleheader in the home opener Friday evening and took two from the Pirates.

In the first game, Mountain Home took advantage of Glenns Ferry errors, scoring single runs in each of the first three innings, and exploding for five runs in the fourth to put it out of reach.

Trevor Woodruff pitched five scoreless innings, giving up just two hits while striking out 11 to get the win.

The Pirates got two unearned runs off John McCabe in the sixth.

Devon Wilkins pitched a scoreless seventh, as the Royals won the first game 8-2.

Ricky Lee had three hits, scored three runs and drove in two more. Eric Christiansen had a two-run double, Brock Morris had a hit and RBI and Tom Hennessey also had a hit.

Alex Rodriguez threw five scoreless innings in the second game and the Royals scored four unearned runs in a 9-2 win.

Rodriguez had eight strikeouts. J.T. Cristobal pitched the final two innings, giving up two unearned runs while striking out three.

Ricky Lee had two hits and scored four runs. Jake Hennessey had a three-run double, John McCabe had a two-run single, and Skyler Podesik knocked in one run with a single. Brock Morris, Trevor Woodruff and Alex Rodriguez also had hits.

Royals head coach Mark Cotton was pleased to get the sweep over the Pilots, and credited it to their pitching.

"The biggest thing that stood out to me today was our pitching. Our defense didn't have to make a whole lot of plays behind them because our pitching was just really stellar.

"Alex Rodriguez threw a great game, and Trevor threw an awesome first game, and you have guys like John McCabe work through some things, Devon Wilkinson came in and shut the game out in the first game, and then J.T. Cristobal looked really good, so our pitching looked great.

"Offensively we had some moments where we looked really good, but we've still got a ways to go offensively, and defensively, we've been pretty solid so far, so we'll see where we're at next week in the tournament."

The Royals open the Mudcat Wood Bat Tourney at Columbia High School in Nampa Thursday morning at 9:30 a.m. against Mountain View. They play Kuna at 3 p.m. on Friday, and face Idaho Falls at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday. Sunday's game for first, third, fifth or seventh depends on their won-loss record through the first three games.