Tiger nine open with losses to 5A schools

The Mountain Home Tigers opened their 2005 baseball season with 7-0 losses to Eagle and Centennial last week.

Eagle Mustangs 7

Mountain Home 0

The Mountain Home Tigers and Eagle Mustangs battled close for six innings before the Mustangs erupted for six runs in the seventh to down the Tigers 7-0 last Thursday in the Tigers opener at Mountain Home.

Tiger hurler Michael Hobgood had a strong outing for Mountain Home, pitching five shutout innings while striking out nine and scattering four hits and walking none. Four Eagle pitchers limited the Tigers to just one hit, a two-out single by Brian Fields in the third.

Brian Fields came on to pitch for the Tigers in the sixth, and gave up an unearned run in the sixth. The Mustangs then touched Fields for six runs on six hits, including two home runs in the seventh before Mike Anderson came in to record the final out.

"I won't go as far as to say I'm satisfied, but there were some impressive efforts out there," said Tiger baseball coach Travis DeVore after the game. "If you take away the pitch count thing, which we have to put on all our pitchers early in the season, (Michael) Hobgood did an amazing job out there, and (Brian) Fields comes in, and I know he's not happy with his outing, and he's going to go home and he's going to be upset tonight, but he's going to be a stud for us this year.

"He came in in a tough situation. Eagle is going to be eager, eager, eager to face anyone after Hobgood goes out there with that kind of a performance, and Brian threw well enough to get some outs there, they just started picking up some momentum.

"I don't think it's a knock against Fields at all. He's going to be a great pitcher for us this year, it's just these are tough situations to come in on."

Centennial Patriots 7

Mountain Home 0

The Tigers traveled to Centennial last Friday, and for the second day in a row Mountain Home's starting pitching did not yield an earned run in five innings of work.

Michael DesPres started on the mound for the Tigers and gave up two unearned runs in the first inning. The Patriots added another unearned run in the fifth, as DesPres scattered five hits and struck out seven in his five innings of work.

Brett Young came on in relief for the Tigers in the sixth, and had a rocky start, giving up a double, single and walk to load the bases, and then Jordan Latham connected for a grand slam before Young settled down to set them down after that.

For the second day in a row, Mountain Home batters collected just one hit, this time a one-out single by Aaron Swartz in the top of the sixth. The Tigers made better contact with the ball their second time out, as, after striking out 11 times in their opener against Eagle, they struck out just six times.

"Without a doubt, tonight is a repeat of last night," said Coach DeVore after the game. "The only thing is, we got a little weaker on defense.

"Michael DesPres threw a great game for us and did everything he could to keep us in the game and give us a chance to win, and down the stretch, that's going to be big for us.

"I'm unhappy with the score, obviously, but we hit the ball well in practice on Tuesday and Wednesday, and it's just a mental thing for us right now. We're stepping in the game, and because we're so inexperienced at the varsity level with most of these guys, we're just not as aggressive as we should be, but that's what the beginning of the season is about.

"We don't have a pre-season, we jump right into it and play some tough teams, so we have to just learn and grow from these experiences. I can't really kid myself, this has pretty much been typical of us in the last couple of seasons.

"We start out slow against these guys, our bats start slow and hopefully, we get it figured out by the time conference starts. The only thing different this year is conference starts in a week."

The Tigers had a non-conference game at Capital yesterday (Tuesday). They open conference play tomorrow (Thursday) at Nampa, and face the Bulldogs again Friday at home.

DeVore indicated he likes the thought of playing back-to-back conference games against the same team.

"I think it suits us well, actually. I think our pitching staff is really going to do well with that sort of situation. If we can just pick up that other side of the game on the other side of the pitcher's mound, then we'll be okay. We've just got to keep at it and keep encouraging the guys and hopefully, we'll start coming around."

The conference games with Nampa start at 4:30 p.m. each day.