Tigers get off to rough start, open season 0-3

The Mountain Home Tigers got off to a rough start in their 2008 baseball season dropping three games.

Timberline 17

Mtn. Home 1

The Mountain Home Tigers got their baseball season off to a rocky start last Tuesday with a 17-1 non-conference loss to Timberline at Tiger Field in Mountain Home in five innings.

The Tigers managed just one hit off Timberline pitching, that an RBI-triple by Alex Hoffman in the first inning. Hoffman's hit scored Cal Vivier, who had walked.

Tiger baseball coach Travis DeVore took the opening season loss to 5A Timberline in stride.

"For our first outing, and having a lot of new guys to varsity throwing, they actually threw well, and we didn't play very good defense behind them, but it's the first game jitters and we played a quality squad, so we need to learn from the mistakes we made and get back in the saddle again and take on Skyview this Thursday and Friday."

Skyview 3

Mtn. Home 1

The Tigers opened their conference schedule Thursday afternoon at Skyview, losing a close game to the Hawks, 3-1.

Tiger pitcher Chris Rau battled some control problems in the first two innings, hitting two batters in the first and walking two in the second, as Skyview scored one in the first and two in the second to go up, 3-0. Rau held the Hawks scoreless the rest of the way. He had three strikeouts, walked four and hit three batters.

Mountain Home's lone run came in the fourth when Alex Hoffman singled and stole second and came home on Jake Hiler's single.

"The defense improved tremendously from the first game," said Coach DeVore after the game. "Chris (Rau) threw a great game, and he settled down after starting a little bit slow, hitting some guys, walking some guys. He really was efficient from then on out. I didn't expect him to go six innings today, as this early, it's all about pitch count, and I had him with 81 pitches after six innings, so that's a heck of a ball game for his first time out, and I'm proud of that effort.

"Some of our hitters made some some adjustments from their first AB (at bat) to their last, but as a team, we didn't, we're still out on our front foot.

"Their pitcher did a good job, even though he doesn't throw that hard, of working the outside corner and keeping our guys off balance, but that's just something that we have to realize that we're going to face those kinds of pitchers that pitch to the best of their abilities, and that's what that kid did.He had a lot of our guys out front on pitches and weak ground balls sand pop flies on the opposite side as the result, and we have to make those adjustments."

The Tigers managed just four hits off Skyview pitcher David Nicodemus. Alex Hoffman had two hits, Brock Morris and Jake Hiler each had one, Hiler's an RBI-single.

Hawks 4

Tigers 2

The Tigers hosted Skyview on Friday, and once again it was a close pitchers' duel, with Skyview again winning, 4-2.

The Tigers took a 1-0 lead in the first inning, Cal Vivier led off with a walk and scored on Ricky Baker's double.

Kyle Douglas doubled in two runs in the top of the second as the Hawks scored three to go up, 3-1.

Mountain got on the scoreboard again in the fifth inning as Alex Hoffman singled in Cal Vivier who had walked. That cut the Skyview lead to 3-2.

The Hawks added another run in the top of the seventh to make it a 4-2 final.

Mountain Home managed just three hits off two Skyview pitchers. Ricky Baker, Alex Hoffman and Jordan Cisna had the hits, Baker's was a double, and Baker and Hoffman had RBIs.

Jake Hiler suffered the loss, despite giving up just five hits. He struck out nine and walked three.

"You want to see competitive baseball games for sure, and those are the games that we'd much rather play, but we obviously need to play correctly," said Coach DeVore. "We made some base-running mistakes and it ended up costing us. We tried to be aggressive at times when maybe we shouldn't have.

"Certainly we're going to get better. Jake Hiler threw well enough for us to win. We're not firing on all cylinders yet, but we'll get there. We needed to be a little smarter on the bases and a little more quality at-bats."

Jordan Cisna had the Tigers only other hit besides Bakers' RBI-double and Hoffman's run-scoring single.

Jake Hiler went the distance on the mound, giving up five hits while striking out nine, hitting two and walking three batters.

Mountain Home returns to action this Thursday and Friday, hosting Emmett on Thursday, and traveling to Emmett on Friday.

"They had an interesting opener with Bishop Kelly where they got 10-runned one game and played a close game and lost, 3-2," said Coach DeVore. "I know they're going to be competitive this year. They beat Capital early on in the year, and they're certainly going to be a dangerous team, but it's all about us at this point.

"We've got to just get our confidence up. These close loses can kind of become contagious and make you be more tentative instead of being more aggressive, and obviously, we just need to spend our three practices this week getting some of that fire back."

Both Emmett games have a 5 p.m. start time.