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SINTON — The Sinton baseball team experienced something on Tuesday that was not necessarily new for this season.
The Pirates cruised through six innings against District 30-4A rival Beeville — leading by three runs, picking up some key hits in the process, including a solo home run from junior Kash Wood that registered an exit speed off 105 mph off the bat.
But in the seventh inning, Beeville came to life and put a Sinton team still trying to find its identity on its heels. The Trojans had the winning run at the plate with two outs in the seventh, but senior Aidan Moody — one of a handful of Pirates players that has experienced the squad's success the last few years — found his groove to strike out Beeville's Noah Salas to end the game.
Sinton (20-5) won 3-1 and moved to 8-1 in the District 30-4A standings but more importantly continued a maturation process for a squad working to live up to the lofty expectations of the program's history, while forging their own identity. The Pirates won their eighth straight game after losing to Beeville back on March 15 in extra innings.
"We knew it was going to be a good game, and good competition, we just stayed to ourselves and played ball like we know how to play," said Moody, who finished the game with 11 strikeouts to three walks and stayed in the high 80s with his fast ball through the night. "We are coming together good, the chemistry is there ... just playing ball and having fun."
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Finding their way
The Pirates were not necessarily in a rebuilding mode this season. But, with the loss of stars such as Jaquae Stewart, who is now playing in junior college in Florida, and Blake Mitchell, who is now playing Single-A ball in the Kansas City Royals organization, Sinton needed to find out who was going to take on new roles offensively and defensively.
Tuesday night, Wood continued a hot streak that dates back a few weeks. He's 10 of 16 at the plate since March 28, which includes three home runs and 15 RBIs in the last five games. Sinton coach Adrian Alaniz said Moody pitched one of his best games of the season Tuesday. And, along with his 11 strikeouts, he carried a no-hitter into the seventh and allowed two hits with an earned run.
Those are two examples for a team that is seeing contributions from players such as Seth Hovda, Nick Flores, Marco Gonzales and Derick Garcia, and Alaniz said they are having some players also returning from injuries. The team is not close to peaking, Alaniz said.
But the signs are there that they are figuring things out. After Tuesday's game, the Pirates are hitting .357 as a team and have a team earned-run of 1.174.
"I feel like we are midway there," Alaniz said. "There's a few key guys that are still injured that we are kind of waiting for them to get back to us, guys in the lineup that you definitely want. And guys that are just trying to get their 15th or 20th at-bat of the season. Those are all things we are trying to stay consistent with, and guys are working their way through. Once postseason hits, that's our main goal to make sure we're playing at least our best ball in the month of May. We've still got a long ways to go."
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