Poly vs. Corona, CIF Wild Card Baseball Tuesday @ Blair, 6:30pm

There are some high school sports fans who complain (vociferously) about the number of automatic bids certain leagues get in the CIF.  We’ve addressed people directing those complaints at the Moore League in a number of sports, and we’re very happy to not have to do that with baseball—after all, Poly, the four-seed and the only league team in a Wild Card game, was playing for a share of the league title on the final day of the season.  They aren’t what you’d think of as a “traditional” four-seed from a league.

Corona, on the other hand, is.  The Panthers were 11-15 overall this year, and 8-6 in the Big VIII, just good enough for fourth place and their league’s final playoff spot.  They finished behind Riverside Poly, Corona Santiago, and Corona Centennial, going 3-3 against those teams.  They’re a relatively good hitting team, averaging five runs a game, but their weakness matches up well with Poly’s strength, since the Panthers do not have a deep bullpen at all, having given up 6.5 runs per-game. 

We’ve been told that tonight they’ll pitch either sophomore Daniel Pena, or junior Jared Currie (we normally include roster numbers in previews but couldn’t find a Panthers roster with the numbers included).  Currie’s ERA on the year is 3.86, and Pena’s is 5.94.  Both have been hit well by the Panthers’ quality offensive opponents, and the hope for Toby Hess’ Jackrabbits will be that they can continue that trend—the Rabbits are on a bit of a streak, having scored 45 runs in their last four games, including 15 against Lakewood and Wilson.

Poly also gains a significant advantage by playing the game at Blair, where their hitters are used to the gaps and space the long fences offer, and where opponents occasionally waste at-bats swinging for the nearly unattainable fences (the Panthers have homered in slightly less than half their games this year).  The junior Tyler Maxwell will get the nod for the Jackrabbits—if he can hold the Panthers off for a few innings, his team should be able to get a jump on the scoreboard.

Of course, Poly isn’t exactly riding off into the sunset should they manage a win on the home turf—if they get by Corona, they will play on the road against the bracket’s two-seed, Royal High, the champs of the Marmonte League.