CBU Baseball Players Thrive in Summer Clubs
By Andrew Shortall
Community Writer
07/27/2015 at 04:06 PM
Collegiately, the baseball season is over at California Baptist University, but for many Lancers it is a year-round game. CBU currently has 12 players honing their game in summer-league action, with many thriving with their clubs.
All 12 Lancers are spread between five summer leagues – Cape Cod, Alaska, Orange County Collegiate, SoCal Nationals Collegiate and M.I.N.K. Collegiate. Five CBU players have been voted to all-star games in their respective leagues. Six Lancers are in the Alaska League, three are in the OCCL and the remaining three are spread throughout the remaining leagues.
Tyson Miller has made three appearances for the Brewster Whitecaps in the Cape Cod League. Overall, Miller has gone 12 innings and maintained a 0.75 earned-run average, with 11 strikeouts, on the mound. He went six strong in his debut, striking out six and allowing just three hits and one earned run. On July 12th, Miller earned his first decision in a 2-0 victory after five quality innings.
Stephen Lohr and Jeremy McDonald have been busy with the Anchorage Bucs in Alaska. McDonald has been brilliant for the Bucs and even played in the 2015 Alaska Baseball League All-Star Game for the American division. The left-handed pitcher sports a tidy 2.12 ERA with 20 strikeouts through 29.2 innings. He hurled eight shutout innings against the Glacier Pilots on July 1st and followed that up with another eight-inning performance to notch the win on July 10th.
Lohr was batting a team-high .320 in conference before being slowed by an injury. The highlight of his season came when he belted a walk-off home run on June 27th. Most recently, he went 2-for-3 in an 8-1 win on July 10th.
Andrew Montoya is one Lancer who has bounced between two different summer leagues this year. Montoya, who is on the way back from a season-ending injury last season for the Lancers, made a move from the Inland Empire Senators out of the Orange County Collegiate League to the Anchorage Bucs.
With the Senators, Montoya was batting .427 with 23 runs batted in, 18 runs and 14 extra-base hits to his credit (11, two home runs). The stellar shortstop also had 12 multi-hit games and an inning pitched to his credit. In three games with the Bucs, Montoya is batting .286 with a run scored and stolen base.
Brian Ruhm and Mark Sanchez have been competing against Lohr, McDonald and Montoya with the Peninsula Oilers in Alaska. Ruhm qualified for the Alaska League All-Star Game and played alongside McDonald on the American Division sqad. He is second on the team in extra-base hits (nine) and leads the entire league with five triples. He is batting .241 in 116 at-bats overall, while hitting .250 in 100 conference at-bats. Sanchez is a new addition to the Oilers, playing in two games so far after redshirting the 2015 season at CBU.
One freshman who made an impact right away for the Lancers, Travis Booth, is now making a name for himself with the Chillicothe Mudcats in the M.I.N.K. Collegiate Summer League. Booth was selected to the league's inaugural all-star game and leads the team in appearances out of the bullpen. The right-hander has struck out 28 batters in 24.2 innings and kept up a 2.55 ERA.
Patrick Gonzales, Dylan Stowell and Brad Rinehart are all spending their summers in the Orange County Collegiate League. Gonzales and Rinehart all impressed to the point of being named to the 2015 OCCL All-Star Game, which played out on July 18th.
After coming out of the bullpen all year for CBU, Gonzales has stretched into a starting role with the Senators, with six of his nine appearances being starts. The submarine-throwing pitcher has struck out 50 batters in 49 innings and sports a 2.39 ERA, 0.94 WHIP and 3-2 record. He is even batting .222 in nine at-bats this summer after going 2-for-4 in a game against the Inland Empire Fire on June 28th. Most recently, Gonzales threw eight innings for the second time this summer against the IE Fire on July 14th. He struck out eight batters without a walk in the outing.
Rinehart has been a gem for the IE Fire. He is leading the team with a .346 batting average and owns a .465 on-base percentage. He has driven in 13 runs and scored 12 times himself. His best game came in a monster 5-for-5 performance on June 11th against the IE Bucs.
Stowell has also appeared in 10 games, seven being starts, for the OC Surf. He is averaging more than a strikeout an inning with 36 in 31 innings overall to go with a 2.90 ERA. He threw five shutout and one-hit innings for the Surf on June 30th.
Brody Robinson is CBU's lone representative on the SoCal Nationals Collegiate team. Robinson has made five appearances and two starts for the squad. In all, he has struck out 22 batters and notched a save in 14.1 innings.
