SONOMA, Calif. — Fans were still settling into their seats Saturday evening at Arnold Field when Walnut Creek Crawdads catcher Zach Justice sent shockwaves throughout the stadium. The backstop took advantage of a hittable 1-0 pitch, pulling it high and deep into the Sonoma sky. Stompers left fielder Cameron Hegamin didn’t even bother moving, he knew, as did everyone else, that left field couldn’t contain Justice’s blast — a two-run first inning home run, also scoring first baseman Joey Donnelly, who reached on a single. 

Early offense was just what the doctor ordered. The Crawdads were coming off their most embarrassing loss of the year, which came at the hands of the very same Stompers at home. They committed four errors in the ninth inning of Friday’s game, allowing five runs to score and couldn’t claw back in the bottom half of the frame. The Crawdads needed to move on as quickly as possible, and the home run was the shock to the system that allowed them to do so. 

“The game didn’t end too fun yesterday,” Justice said. “We knew we wanted to put pressure on them early, so that was a pretty easy and fun way to do it.” 

Walnut Creek (18-13), on one swing, stole whatever momentum Sonoma (21-14) carried into the matchup. It controlled the game the rest of the way, piling on seven runs across four different scoring innings after the first, and limited Sonoma’s offensive production, beating the home team 9-1 in its last trip to Wine Country this season. 

“Hitting is contagious, and when you have the biggest hit you can possibly get, everyone wants to keep building on it,” Justice said. 

The Crawdads threatened Stompers’ right-handed starter Harun Pelja in the second inning, but wouldn’t score again until the third when second baseman Cam Calvilo scored from third on a wild pickoff attempt. The offense was able to string hits together in the fourth and sixth innings to score three runs, however, they matched that total later on in the eighth inning. 

Two walks sandwiched between a fielder’s choice set the stage for Donnelly and Justice to score two runs on a sac fly and a single up the middle against Stompers right-handed reliever Jaxen Rowland. From there, Rowland only got wilder. The NorCal native walked three straight batters to bring in the Crawdads’ ninth and final run of the night, putting the game out of reach. 

“We took pitches, we took our walks, we weren’t chasing,” Justice said. “Eventually, they’re just going to have to throw it over the plate when they can’t locate. I feel like we damaged them when they did that.” 

The Crawdads’ pitching staff never let trouble boil over the way the Stompers did, but that doesn’t mean it was smooth sailing all the way. Left-handed starter Aiden White kicked off the bottom half of the second inning by hitting Stompers second baseman Anthony Scheppler with a pitch. It’s never good to put the leadoff hitter on base, but it’s even worse when you commit an error right after. White fielded a weakly hit ball to the left of the mound and threw a one-hopper to Donnelly at first base, which he couldn’t pick. The runners advanced to second and third, and White had to navigate the situation with no outs. 

White got the next batter he faced to ground out, which scored a run, but also seemed to unlock his best stuff. White struck out the next two batters he faced, striking out six overall and only allowing three more base runners the rest of the way as he cruised through six innings from that point on.

The outing was his longest of the year by pitch count. 

“It felt great,” White said. “I was looking to go deep into the game today, but after the fifth inning, I was around 80 pitches, and I was feeling great. (Crawdads head coach Brant Cummings) asked me how I was doing, and I said ‘great.’ I wanted to go one more.” 

The bullpen finished off what White started, throwing three scoreless innings to preserve the Crawdads’ win. Left-handed closer Bradyn Barnes ran into trouble in the ninth inning, loading the bases with no outs, but he managed to escape the jam without letting anyone cross the plate. 

The Crawdads’ defense also picked up the pitching staff in a way that they didn’t late in Friday’s game. The team still committed three errors, all of which involved Donnelly, who’s spent most of his summer in right field, in one way or another. With Crawdads All-Star first baseman John Youens done for the season and other Crawdads players dealing with their respective injuries and circumstances, Cummings needed to shuffle players around to new positions. 

Overall, though, Saturday’s defensive effort was much better than Friday’s, and the team didn’t let the errors compound on top of each other in bunches. 

“(The defense) was really, really good, other than the two or maybe three miscues,” Cummings said. “We played well, made all the plays and most of the plays were routine. It felt good. Pitching and defense, I keep saying it.” 

After Friday’s game, Cummings said the team had to do “everything we didn’t do today” to win on Saturday. That’s easier said than done, but the team did it. The pitching staff executed, the offense scored early and extended its lead and the defense, of course, didn’t suffer a catastrophic meltdown. Going into the series finale against the Stompers back at home, Cummings doesn’t have to hope for his team to pull off a 180-degree turn, he just needs to hope for more of the same. 

“I think the formula is the same as: be able to throw strikes tomorrow in the first inning and get them out and don’t allow them to score, and then find a way to get a lead and to hold onto it,” Cummings said. “We play well with a lead most of the time. Now, if we have to fight from behind, we have the ability to do that as well. But the main thing is to come out and have good things happen early so people gain confidence as a group.” 

By Ethan Ignatovsky