'Hawks stumble at start

Lancaster's offense cooler than weather

Instead, Lancaster opened the 1999 season in what was supposed to be the milder climate of Bakersfield's Sam Lynn Ballpark on Thursday night.

But somebody forgot to tell the weatherman as the game-time temperature registered 47 degrees and dipped into the lower 40s. It felt much, much cooler, though, with the damp air and steady breeze blowing in from left field.

What figures to be a high-powered Lancaster offense was even colder as three Bakersfield pitchers and some early-season anxiousness kept the JetHawks on ice in a 5-0 Blaze victory before an announced crowd of 875 bundledup fans.

The shutout was the first time Lancaster had been blanked on opening day.

But even with the loss, Lancaster manager Darrin Garner was pleased with what he saw in his JetHawks debut.

"I saw some good things out there tonight," Garner said. "I was happy with the effort. If we keep playing like we did tonight, I think we are going to get some wins. . . I think we might have been a little overanxious tonight was all."

That overanxiousness showed at the plate. Lancaster managed only five hits in the first seven innings and failed to string more than one of them together in an inning.

"We didn't get the big hit in certain opportunities," said Lancaster outfielder Mike Marchiano, who went 2-for-4 and had a sure home-run ball in the sixth inning knocked down by the wind for a double. "That's how you win ball games. But we'll be OK. . . We have some good hitters on this team. We were just a little too anxious."

With the loss, the JetHawks dipped to .500 (2-2) in season openers in their four-year history, while the Blaze won its third straight. Bakersfield's last loss on opening night came in 1996, when the JetHawks won 8-3 at Sam Lynn Ballpark in the first game in their franchise history.

Last season, it was Lancaster that pitched a shutout, when Dennis Stark won 1-0 over Rancho Cucamonga on a blustery night at The Hangar.

But Thursday, it was the Blaze's Manuel Bermudez (1-0) who sizzled on a chilly evening. The 22-year-old right-hander allowed four hits and a walk in five innings while striking out one and hitting another.

Anytime the JetHawks were able to get the beginnings of a rally going against Bermudez, the Blaze turned away the threat with an inning-ending double play. Bakersfield turned three in the first five innings, the biggest of which came off the bat of Luis Figueroa in the fourth inning and prevented Greg Connors from scoring Lancaster's first run of the season.

"We had a number of opportunities to get things going, we just didn't get the big hits," Garner said.

Connors was the only JetHawk to advance past second base in the game, reaching base on the second of two Bakersfield errors and taking third on Craig Kuzmic's single.

Bakersfield, meanwhile, made the most of its scoring opportunities in the second and third innings to stake itself to a quick 4-0 lead.
After a strong first inning, Lancaster starter Jeff Farnsworth (0-1) struggled in the second. He hit Jeff Allen and allowed him to score on a wild pitch. Jeremy Luster also scored in the inning on a rare stand-up triple at the relatively small Sam Lynn Ballpark by Cody Ransom.

Back-to-back doubles by Arturo McDowell and Doug Clark netted the Blaze another run in the third inning, and Clark added a fourth score on Xavier Burns' two-out single off Farnsworth.

The Lancaster right-hander, who was making his first appearance in almost two years, struck out four, but allowed six hits and a walk and hit three Blaze batters.

Emmerson Bello allowed the other Bakersfield run on an eighth-inning solo home run by Burns, but struck out the other three batters he faced.

"Our pitching staff did an excellent job," Garner said. "They did a good job of keeping us in the game."