Ace carries Miners baseball to win

El Diamante's Gimbarti throws two-hitter vs. Reedley.

Published online on Tuesday, May. 26, 2009

VISALIA -- El Diamante High's Blake Gimbarti was -- in baseball parlance -- dealing on Friday.

The senior right-hander pitched a two-hitter with a season-high 13 strikeouts to lead the top-seeded Miners to a 5-1 victory over No. 9 Reedley in the quarterfinals of the Central Section Division II playoffs.

"I had no clue what I was in for," said Gimbarti, who improved to 10-2 with his sixth complete game in 15 appearances. "I just planned to throw strikes and get ahead and hope good things would happen."

Making good use of his slider, Gimbarti struck out the side in the top of the first inning, two looking.

"It was working well the whole game," Gimbarti said. "I didn't lose it at all."

Gimbarti set the side down in order in every inning but the third, when he issued consecutive walks to Jarrod Chiasson and David Nichols and a bunt single to Matt Rhodes. An error on Rhodes' well-placed bunt allowed Chiasson to score Reedley's only run.

Gimbarti rebounded by striking out Jonathan Rodriguez and Brian Scharbach -- both looking -- and getting Andrew Aleman to ground out to escape the jam.

"It was one of those days where he was on," Miners catcher Joey Andrada said. "Everything I called, he threw for a strike pretty much. He struggled in one inning, but limited the damage and got through it. His slider was working very well today. We tried to keep them off balance with that."

Other than James Martin's single to shallow right field in the second inning, Gimbarti didn't allow a ball out of the infield. Because he erased Martin with a double play, Gimbarti faced only three batters over the minimum.

"Blake's a gamer and he pitched another outstanding game," said El Diamante coach Bert Flores, whose team is 22-8. "He has a lot of confidence in his pitches and in the guys playing defense behind him. We played good defense today. It helps."

Gimbarti finished the game nearly as strong as he started it, striking out four of the final six batters, including the final one looking.

"He was able to get a lot of swings and misses," said Reedley coach Dan Ascanio, whose team finished 16-15. "He got us on our heels and made it so we weren't swinging at pitches in the strike zone."

Gimbarti helped his cause with a a two-run single in El Diamante's three-run first inning. Aaron Sing's two-run single in the fourth put the Miners up 5-1.

El Diamante, seeking its fourth section title in the program's five seasons, advanced to Wednesday's semifinals, where it will meet 13th-seeded Memorial, a 10-3 winner over No. 12 Tulare Western on Friday.

The Miners beat the Panthers 7-2 for the D-II title in 2007. Memorial kept El Diamante from repeating as D-II champ last season with a 10-4 victory in the quarterfinals.