Clovis baseball team wins third straight

CLOVIS — Don’t count the Clovis baseball team out.

Despite their gruesome start, the Wildcats seem like they’ve gotten it together. Tuesday, the ’Cats won their third straight by zipping Portales 3-0 at Bell Park. The shutout pitching of junior Matthew Rubio helped, but Clovis is playing with a different attitude than the team that opened against Lubbock-Coronado three weeks earlier. The Wildcats are making plays in the field, they’re showing patience at the plate.

And overall, they’re playing with confidence.

“You said the one word — confidence,” Clovis head coach Richard Cruce said from the home clubhouse after Tuesday’s game. “These guys have started to build a little confidence, and they’re beginning to play and understand the game and the culture that’s been built before them. They know what to do, they’re figuring it out. But again, playing with confidence makes you a better ball club.”

“I’m proud of us,” Rubio said after working all seven innings and allowing just three hits while striking out 10. “We’re playing strong. We’re doing what we’re supposed to do as a team.”

With the three-game streak — that has also included a 9-1 victory over Gallup and an 8-7 win over Bloomfield, both in last weekend’s Goddard Invitational — Clovis has improved to a more respectable 4-7.

Portales, meanwhile, dropped to 0-2 as Tuesday’s loss followed Monday’s 4-3 home setback against Muleshoe.

“Our pitching’s been really good,” Portales head coach Dusty Nusser said. “(Monday) we gave up a couple hits that hurt us. I think we made one error (Monday), two I think (Tuesday). We’ve done some good things. ... We’ve still got a long way to go.”

Tuesday, both Rubio and Portales starter Jordan Garcia were stingy at chilly, rainy Bell Park.

The Rams’ Luciano Rodriguez walloped a 2-0 pitch to right-center for a two-out, first-inning double, but his team didn’t get another hit off Rubio until the sixth inning.

“Matthew threw well (Tuesday),” Cruce said. “Every time he’s been on the mound this year, Matthew’s given us a chance to be successful. He did it again (Tuesday) — he grinded, he bulldogged it.”

“I’m just doing what the coach asks me to do,” Rubio said, “help our team get some wins.”

Garcia was also tossing shutout ball until the bottom of the fifth, which Clovis’ Jeremiah Lucero led off with a walk. Lucero stole second with Rubio at the plate, and though Rubio proceeded to ground out, he moved Lucero to third.

At that point, Nusser walked to the mound and took the ball from Garcia, who had allowed only one hit. It wasn’t a match-up thing, according to Nusser, just time to come get his starter.

“He was done,” Nusser said. “This is the second game of our season; we’ve still got a lot of games. ... We’re not going to run their pitch counts up real early like that, we’re going to kind of build slowly into them. That way, when we get into district, they’ll be able to go like (Clovis’) kid did.”

So, in came Trevor Whiting to replace Garcia. Norbert Achibeque was next up for Clovis, and he took the first pitch for a ball before slicing the second into left for a single that scored Lucero.

Anthony Gonzales then dropped a single into shallow right-center, and Trevon Dickson reached on an error, loading the bases. Zayvier Hartman drew a four-pitch walk, forcing Archibeque home with Clovis’ second run while keeping the bases jammed. Next up was Ian Yruegas, who forced Hartman out at second base but in the process, drove Gonzales home to make it 3-0.

Whiting then came up with a strikeout to keep the difference at three.

Rubio issued a walk to start the top of the sixth before a rain delay occurred with, fittingly, Hagen Rains at the plate. Tarps went on the mound and the batter’s box, then came off about 15 minutes later. And Rubio returned to the hill.

“I was in (the dugout) stretching so my arm didn’t get tired,” Rubio said of how he had spent the delay.

“That’s what we talked about when we came in here,” Cruce recalled. “He needed to stay loose and be ready to go.”

But initially after play resumed, Rubio didn’t seem quite the same, as Rains clouted a single to give Portales runners on first and second.

“I was pretty nervous after that,” Rubio said. “But I just hung in and did what I needed to do.”

Which was retire three straight batters, one on a flyout, the next two on strikeouts — one swinging, one looking. As he headed toward the dugout, Rubio was congratulated by his teammates and the Clovis coaches, all seeming happier than Mike Trout on payday.

“After a rain delay you only get a certain number of pitches to get ready,” Cruce said. “He did a great job of coming out of it.”

And Rubio finished the job in the seventh, allowing just a one-out hit that did no damage after he induced a fly out and ground out on the next two Portales at-bats.

“We’ve struggled swinging it,” Nusser said. “I’m not going to say (Rubio) didn’t do a good job; he did a good job against us. But we’re struggling to swing it right now, we’re striking out a lot, so we’ve got to figure it out.”

Portales moved on to the St. Mike’s Invite, which began Thursday in Santa Fe. The Wildcats, though, have a week off before they host Lovington this Tuesday, when they’ll try to keep it going, make it four straight.

“We’ve grown and gotten better every day,” Cruce said. “We’ve still got a long way to go, but we’re starting to play better ball every day, and that’s all I can ask these guys to do.”