By KEVIN JAKAHI
By KEVIN JAKAHI
Tribune-Herald sports writer
It’s a good thing the Hawaii Stars brought their clobbering sticks and OPS utensils, because those pesky first-place San Rafael Pacifics wouldn’t take the hint and fade quietly into the dark, windless night.
Showing a new-found propensity to score often and with seemingly abundant ease, at least on Saturday night, the Stars tenderized and pounded the Pacifics 14-6 in a North American Baseball League game at Wong Stadium.
The Stars (21-20) and Pacifics (26-15) play the final game of a six-game series at 1:35 p.m. today at Wong. Paul Jinkens (3-1, 4.82 ERA) is scheduled to start for Hawaii. It’s Kids’ Day at the park with free admission for youngsters 12 years old and under. The Stars will also give away autographed bats and balls.
If hitting is indeed contagious, then almost everyone on the Stars had hitting fever and fattened their stats against a porous collection of four San Rafael pitchers, who got bombarded for 14 hits, including five of the extra-hit variety.
Anthony Lopez enjoyed himself. He went 2 for 4 with three RBIs. Arnoldo Ponce had fun, too. He was 3 for 4. Keoni Manago and Jason Thomas each batted 2 for 5 with two RBIs, beefing up their stats.
Hawaii’s hitting didn’t stop there. New leadoff man Matt Hibbert went 2 for 4. Reece Alnas was 1 for 5 with three RBIs. Everyone got a hit, except Anthony Williams, who went 0 for 3 but walked twice.
Manago, who leads Hawaii with an .896 OPS percentage (on-base plus slugging), showed the value of baseball’s favorite sabermetric statistic. To grade OPS, think of the educational grading scale: 1.000 to .900, a grade of A+ to A-; .899 to .800, a grade of B+ to B- and so forth.
In the third, the Stars gave good lickings to Pacifics starter Michael Hebert, a seventh-round draft pick of the New York Mets in 2008 out of Sagus (Calif.) High, slamming three extra basehits, including a pair of RBI triples, for a four-run rally.
“That’s exactly what we needed in the middle of the lineup earlier in the year,” Hawaii manager Garry “G2” Templeton II said. “Manago can drive in runs and score himself.”
Andrew Pevsner, Tyler Graham and Will Krasner also got thrown in a washing machine, and contributed to the lopsided score, which kept expanding with each new victim.
Hibbert started the festivities with a lead-off walk. Then Manago clocked a 3-2 fastball for a screaming RBI double, immediately putting himself into scoring position. He and Ponce, who walked, scored on Lopez’ run-scoring triple. Thomas followed with another first-pitch RBI triple to the right-field corner.
That in a nutshell summed up the value of OPS, what Major League Baseball teams scour the globe for and pay millions upon millions for players who post such handsome numbers. The Los Angeles Angels lavished a $254 million, 10-year deal to Albert Pujols, who has a career 1.026 OPS.
On-base and slugging percentage, basically, work hand in hand. A baserunner — reaching on a hit, walk, error, hit by pitch, or strikeout and wild pitch — is a potential run. A slugger, someone who piles up extra basehits, has a better chance to drive in a run with one swing; sometimes it takes three singles to score a run, especially if players run like they’re carrying a piano, such as the case with the Detroit Tigers.
“We weren’t station to station because with us we’ve got good speed,” G2 said. “But now with a guy like Manago with a runner on first we can score with a double.”
Meanwhile, in the first inning Stars starter Steve Raburn (3-1, 4.64) did his best Tom Seaver impersonation, ringing up five straight strikeouts after Darrick Hale’s leadoff single. Henry Calderon, the No. 7 batter, stopped the string with a flyout in the second inning.
“To tell the truth, I was going for it (consecutive strikeouts) when I got the first five,” said Big Red, the right-handed Raburn is 6 feet, 5 inches. “I was really excited. I thought I’d have another outing like the last one (a three-hitter and five strikeouts in a 5-0 win over Sonoma County).
“The most I had was eight in a row in my first year of pro ball with the Whitewings (a defunct NABL team) in 2010. That game I had 14 strikeouts, the most in my career. I can’t find the word for it when I had eight strikeouts in a row. You feel like you’re on top of the world.”
Ryan Screnar cleaned up with the three innings for the save. Under baseball rules, a pitcher earns a save if he closes with at least three innings, no matter the lead when he enters. Hawaii led 12-4 at the time he appeared.
Seaver, the Hall of Fame right-hander then with the New York Mets, holds the MLB record for consecutive strikeouts with 10, against the San Diego Padres in 1970, a year after the Amazin’ Mets won the World Series.
That’s a rather obscure strikeout record. The most popular strikeout record is 20 punchouts in a game, accomplished three times, twice by Roger Clemens when he was with the Boston Red Sox in 1986 and ‘96, against the Seattle Mariners and Tigers, respectively, and once by Kerry Wood, with the Chicago Cubs, against the Houston Astros in 1998.
Raburn, 23, went six innings and yielded four runs (three earned) on six hits and three walks, and struck out six, showing resiliency when he suffered a wobbly last frame, but quickly found his equilibrium to escape major damage.
“I got fatigued and was getting tired,” said Raburn, who gave up all three runs in the sixth.
He looked to be on the ropes, but the Pacifics couldn’t knock him out. Big Red battled and depended on his steel-cage mindset.
“You’ve got to dig deep with your heart,” he said. “The game is 80 percent mental and 20 percent physical, to me. I think I’m pretty strong mentally. That’s how I got through the last two innings.
“I also threw a new pitch, a split-finger fastball. I have probably not thrown it in a year. But it worked and I got three of my strikeouts with it. I was trying it in the bullpen the last two months and it wasn’t working. Today in the bullpen, it was dirty and it worked well.”
Hawaii right fielder and leadoff man Steve Tedesco, who is riding a 17-game hitting streak with a .311 batting average, sat out his second straight game after injuring his right shoulder on a diving catch in Thursday’s game. Also out with injuries are catchers Jensen Torres (concussion) and Brendan Davis (right hand).
It was only Raburn’s third start. He’s still rounding himself into shape, after coming over from the Pecos Independent League in New Mexico. His outing, one that showed his strong chin when pushed against the ropes, impressed his manager.
“Raburn pitched really well, considering he didn’t really pitch much at all in the last two months before he got to us,” G2 said. “But he’s doing well, challenging hitters, going after it and falling in line with the other pitchers.”
Pacifics 000 013 020 — 6 9 3
Stars 104 025 02x — 14 14 3