LAKE ELSINORE — Despite a stellar five-inning shutout performance by 2024 top draft pick, left-hander Kash Mayfield, the Storm went down in extra innings on Wednesday night, 3-2.
Kash Mayfield threw five shutout innings on Wednesday. (Photo: Robert Escalante)
“He’s been going really well lately,” said Storm manager Brian Burres. “It’s his third straight start going five innings and always giving us a chance to win.
“The stuff speaks for itself.”
Mayfield, 20, in his first full season of pro ball, struck out the side in the first inning and recorded five of the first six outs by strikeout.
Burres, a left-handed pitcher in who spent parts of six seasons in the major leagues, has been impressed with Mayfield’s performance this season.
“He is still a work in progress, but he does very well when he commands the zone. He not only had a lot of strikeouts tonight, but was very efficient with his pitches. I love his fastball, and he can do what he wants with it.
“As he gets older, there will be more in there as well.”
Mayfield ended the night with nine strikeouts against one walk, allowing only three hits.
With Mayfield cruising, the Storm got on the board first when Ryan Wideman, who the Padres selected in the third round this year, opened the game with a hustle double to right field and advanced to third base on a balk. Carlos Rodguez’s groundout to second brought home Wideman.
And that was all the scoring in the game until a wild eighth inning.
After a game stoppage for some groundskeeping on the mound, reliever Vicarte Domingo walked the first three batters, but getting a runner thrown out on the basepaths allowed him to wiggle out of the inning without allowing a run, even after a single.
In the bottom of the inning, with runners on the corners, George Bilecki broke for second. When the throw went through, Bradley Frye broke for home and beat the return throw to extend the home team’s lead to 2-0.
Domingo opened the ninth by walking two more before he was replaced by Bernard Jose, who gave up a single to put Rancho Cucamonga on the board. After giving up another walk, he induced a double-play, which allowed the visitors to tie the game.
The Storm couldn’t capitalize on Dylan Grego’s two-out double in the ninth, and in the tenth, the Quakes were able to push a run across to score the winning run as Lake Elsinore went down in order to end the game.
Notes: Through the first seven innings, Mayfield and Clay Edmondson walked three batters. In the final three, Domingo and Jose walked six. … Truitt Madonna, an overslot signee out of Ballard High School in Seattle this year, was 0-for-4 with a pair of strikeouts as the DH. When the Storm started the season, he was playing prep baseball. He is one of the very few high school players to be sent out from the complex after this year’s draft. … Six of the nine Storm starters were drafted or signed as undrafted free agents this summer.
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