SAN MATEO, Calif. — The Walnut Creek Crawdads had a tailor-made opportunity to get back into their Monday evening game against the Menlo Park Legends in the seventh inning. The Crawdads had the bases loaded, no outs, and their five-hole hitter, first baseman John Youens, was walking up to the left-handed batter’s box, looking to erase his team’s two-run deficit. 

Youens stepped in and stared down Legends’ right-handed reliever Tyler Lachance, the first pitcher to come out of the bullpen in relief of right-handed starter Matthew Anderson, who went six strong innings. Lachance had failed to show good command, walking and hitting the first two batters he faced, but Youens wasn’t interested in waiting around and trying to draw a free pass.

On the first pitch he saw, the Baylor Bear roped a double over right fielder Austin Rabago’s head and off the wall, scoring two runs, tying the game and catapulting momentum back into the Crawdads’ dugout. 

“When (Lachance) came in, we loaded up the bases, so we felt pretty confident,” Youens said. “We all had pretty quality at-bats, and we got something going and kept it rolling.”

A wild pitch handed Walnut Creek (17-12) the lead and the offense added two more insurance runs on another double and a groundout to beat Menlo Park (13-18) 7-4. The win was Walnut Creek’s first against Menlo Park in five matchups this season, and it sent the team away from a chilly College of San Mateo and into the All-Star break feeling warm inside.

“All the guys in front of me are swinging the heck out of the bat and finding ways to get on,” Youens said. “That’s kind of how this team gets going. Everyone in front of me and behind me was doing their job. It all worked out pretty well.”

Finding ways to get on and swinging hard to drive those runners in worked great for the Crawdads, not only in the seventh inning, but also in the first inning, which was the only other frame the offense scored in. 

Right fielder Joey Donnelly got a two-out rally started with a single up the middle and then recorded his fifth stolen base of the year when he nabbed second. Shortstop Jared Mettam then recorded his first of three singles, knocking a pitch into right-center field, scoring Donnelly for the first run of the game. 

Youens would bring Mettam home on a single of his own after the shortstop stole second base, but that was the last run the Crawdads would be able to produce off Anderson. The righty allowed seven base runners over his next five innings of work, but always managed to get out of jams and shut down the Crawdads in frustrating fashion. It wasn’t until the Legends went into their bullpen in the seventh inning that the vibes started to shift. 

“I haven’t seen many bullpens in this league that have been dynamite enough to hold us, especially when we’re going good,” Crawdads head coach Brant Cummings said. “It does change things a little bit. (Anderson) was OK, we just didn’t string together good at-bats against him.” 

Anderson’s start was fairly similar to Crawdads right-handed starting pitcher Carson Timothy’s outing, which was his first start of the summer. The righty ran into trouble in the first inning, giving up two no-out runs after a series of weakly hit balls up the middle and hits that found grass in the outfield. 

Despite the extremely early success that the Legends had against Timothy, Cummings remained confident in his starter and was rewarded. Timothy settled down, recorded three outs in the first and got his skipper nine more outs after that. 

“It’s not like these guys hit the ball around the park,” Cummings said. “They made contact, which is what hitters need to do, but I thought we continued to have a chance, because it’s not as if they one-hopped the wall, ball in the gap. It was doable, and he can pitch.” 

Timothy only allowed a walk in each inning that he pitched after the first. His catcher Zach Justice threw out the CCL’s leading base stealer, left fielder Quincy Via, when he tried to take second after walking in the second inning. Timothy’s defense made plays behind him to nullify the walk in the third, and he recorded his third strikeout of the day after walking a batter in the fourth. 

Timothy’s ability to settle down kept the Crawdads in the game. Even when right-handed reliever Peter Storjohann gave up a pair of runs in the sixth inning, the game wasn’t put out of reach, in large part due to Timothy’s ability to put zeros on the board.

“I just had to settle in,” Timothy said. “Kind of get the command rolling and lean on the changeup there at the end and just kept going.

“We’re not huge fans of the Legends, I would say. It was nice to finally get that dub before heading into the break.”

After the Crawdads’ loss to the Legends on Sunday, Cummings said that, for whatever reason, his team could never execute all three facets of the game against the Legends. That finally changed Monday. Clutch hitting, solid pitching and good defense all worked together to give the Crawdads their first win against the Legends in 2025. 

The two teams might not be near each other in the standings, but in sports — especially in as tight of a division as the CCL North, where four teams are within 1.5 games of the division lead — you have to beat the teams that you’re supposed to beat. The Crawdads will face the Legends two more times on the road to the playoffs, and have now proven to themselves that winning against them is possible. For now, though, they’ll just carry that good feeling into the All-Star break.

“Ultimately, it feels really good to win, because we need to maintain our position in the standings,” Cummings said. “But for these guys to win the way we did with offense, some defense and pitching, it’s a recipe.”

By Ethan Ignatovsky