Royals split doubleheader in Legion baseball debut

The Mountain Home Royals managed a split with the Boise Barons Saturday in their home American Legion baseball opener, losing the first game but winning the second.

The Royals jumped out to a 2-0 first-inning lead and added another run in the second.

Boise scored a run in the fourth, and took advantage of Royals' starter and loser Jesse Cobos' wildness in the fifth, scoring three runs. Cobos walked four batters in the inning and two of them scored on hits.

The Barons added an unearned run against Royals' reliever Tyler McCall in the sixth to go up 5-3. Mountain Home answered with an unearned run in the bottom half of the inning with the game at 5-4 for the Barons.

The Royals collected five hits in the first game. Zach Petersen had a triple and Jesse Cobos had a double, Cody Blakemore had an RBI-single and Kody Arellano and Esmer Castillo also had hits.

Mountain Home took advantage of Baron errors in the first inning in the second game to score six runs. They were unable to put any more runs across the plate the rest of the game, but withstood a three-run second and two-run fifth by the Barons to hold on for a 6-5 win.

Cody Blakemore and Tyler McCall had the big bats, both collecting two hits. Blakemore had two doubles and an RBI and McCall had one double and an RBI. Zach Petersen, Kody Arellano and Jesse Cobos also had hits.

Zach Petersen pitched into the sixth inning to get the win. Levi Abrahamson had four strikeouts in an inning and two thirds of relief work, to get the save.

Royals head coach Michael Hobgood saw plenty of positives to work on after their first two games.

"We definitely have some things to work on, but I love the way we rebounded in the second game. Our pitchers threw great and we hit, we just couldn't string the hits together in either game.

"There were a lot of positives to build on, and I'm very excited moving forward. We just have to become a more consistent offensive team and give our great pitching some run support."

The Royals have a busy week this week.

They hosted Columbia Monday night in a non-conference game. They traveled to Twin Falls on Tuesday for a non-conference doubleheader with the Blackhawks. Then they go to the Mudcat Classic at Columbia Thursday through Sunday. They open at 6 p.m. Thursday against the Thunder. They have two games on Friday, playing the Cobras at 10 a.m. and the Trapper Red team at 12:30 p.m. Saturday they play Trapper Red again at 6 p.m, and Sunday will play another game against a team to be determined by their record.