Tigers falter during doubleheader against Bulldogs

The Mountain Home Tigers showed their youth last week in losing both games of their conference series against the Nampa Bulldogs.

Bulldogs 4, Tigers 3 (8 innings)

Mountain Home saw an early 2-0 lead fall by the wayside as the Nampa Bulldogs battled back to beat the Tigers 4-3 last Thursday in Mountain Home.

The Tigers scored twice in the first inning to take an early 2-0 lead but missed opportunities to add to it.

However, the Bulldogs pushed across two runs in the top of the sixth inning to tie the game, and went up 3-2 with a run in the top of the seventh.

Mountain Home got an RBI-single from Anthony Castillo to tie the game at 3-3 in the bottom of the seventh, but could not get the winning run home, as the game went extra innings.

Gage Curtis replaced Jared Day as pitcher in the top of the eighth and the Bulldogs were able to score on a throwing error to take a 4-3 lead in the top of the eighth.

The Tigers had the tying and winning runs on base in the bottom of the eighth but were unable to get them home, as Nampa won 4-3.

Tiger baseball coach Mark Cotton said it was one that got away from them.

"I think I can take a little bit of the responsibility on that just as far as there were some moments in the game where I could have moved runners, and I let our hitters hit and just feeling things out, so I definitely take the blame for some of it.

"But we also had guys in some clutch situations, some base-running mistakes, not getting bunts down, and defensive errors, and when you do that, and give them that many chances in the baseball game, you're not going to be very successful.

"You come back at the end of the night and look at all of those plays and if this would have changed, or that would have changed, we win the ballgame," he said.

"You let a team hang around and they're going to build confidence. We jumped out early and kind of got on them, and then we just got complacent at the plate and maybe even a little bit complacent defensively, too."

Jake Hennessey had two hits, including a triple and an RBI, for the Tigers.

Skyler Podesek, Alex Rodriguez, Anthony Castillo, Gage Curtis and Enrique Varela also had hits. Podesek had a double and an RBI, Rodriguez had a triple and Castillo had an RBI.

Bulldogs 7, Tigers 2

Nampa scored all of its runs in the first two innings, but it was more than enough to down the Tigers 7-2 and sweep the conference series at Nampa's Rodeo Park Friday.

Skyler Podesek doubled in a run for the Tigers in the top of the first inning but Nampa answered with two in the bottom half of the inning.

The Bulldogs added five more runs in the bottom of the second after two were out, to up their lead to 7-1.

Mountain Home added a run in the third to make it 7-2 and completed the scoring on the night for both clubs.

"Alex (Rodriguez) had great stuff last week, but didn't have his best stuff tonight, and got behind in the count a bit, and that definitely can come back to bite you," Coach Cotton said. "But this definitely wasn't on Alex's shoulders tonight. We did not make plays and didn't have great focus at the plate either.

"In all phases of the game we weren't very good today, so I think it brought us down to earth a little bit. We'll re-evaluate and see what we can do throughout the week and see what these guys are willing to do to make themselves better."

The Tigers managed just five hits in the game, including two by Skyler Podesek, who had a double an RBI.

Jake Hennessey had a triple and Anthony Castillo and Austin Bodily also had hits.

Alex Rodriguez suffered the loss, giving up seven runs, none earned, in five innings of work.

The Tigers host Skyview in conference action Thursday and travel to Skyview on Friday. Both games start at 5 p.m.