Kaz blanks Sailors

Edison High senior Kaz Akamatsu can’t really explain it, but he enjoys pitching at Newport Harbor’s baseball field.

“Whenever I pitch here, I get a lot of sink on my fastball for some reason,” Akamatsu said.

He likes inducing ground balls anyway. On Saturday, the Sailors obliged.

Akamatsu pitched a three-hit shutout as the Chargers blanked the Sailors, 3-0, in a Sunset League game.

The UC Irvine-bound right-hander dominated, throwing his first shutout of the season to help Edison improve to 6-10-1, and 2-1 in league. Only one of the three hits he allowed left the infield.

Akamatsu (2-3) struck out nine Newport Harbor batters and got seven more ground-ball outs. He did not walk a batter.

It was a similar performance to the last time he pitched at Newport Harbor last May, when he again pitched a complete game and allowed two hits and one unearned run. Edison won that day, 6-1.

“The thing is, he doesn’t make many mistakes,” Newport Harbor Coach Evan Chalmers said. “When he did, we didn’t get a chance to square it up. All you can hope for is to get a fastball in the count, something relatively straight that you can hit hard. He makes the ball move. He’s got three or four different pitches that are all down ... That’s why he’s going to the next level.”

The Sailors (5-9, 1-3 in league) got a runner to second base twice. The first time was in the bottom of the second, when Luke Genova and Cade Seabold both hit singles. But, with two outs, pinch-runner Steve Bibona tried to advance to third on a pitch in the dirt. The ball bounced up nicely to Edison sophomore catcher Connor Aoki, who was able to record the out at third.

Akamatsu got all the support he would need in the top of the third, when the Chargers scored three runs (two unearned) against Newport Harbor starting pitcher Jeremiah Sheldon (3-3). Jared Burton led off with a single to left, was sacrificed to second and went to third on a passed ball. One out later, Kyler Arenado walked and stole second.

Edison’s Leo Hyodo then hit a chopper between pitcher and first, and Sheldon and the first baseman Genova both broke to get it. The problem was, that left nobody at first base, and Burton scored on the play.

“That’s the part that’s discouraging,” Chalmers said. “They really didn’t hit the ball very hard against our guys. The got the chopper in the infield. It’s almost like a couple of their balls had eyes and managed to squeak through, and we couldn’t get anything to land. To credit them, they run the bases well and have got a little bit of team speed. They put some pressure on us.”

Instead of Vince Inman’s fly ball to right field being the third out, it was a sacrifice fly to score Arenado. Akamatsu then added an RBI single to center to score Hyodo, who also had stolen second base.

“We had a lot of runners on all day and we couldn’t get big hits,” said Edison Coach Cameron Chinn, whose hitters drew a total of seven walks off Sheldon before reliever Chaz Perry came on in the sixth inning . “Credit to their pitchers for making pitches when they had to. But in that inning, we got a leadoff base hit, we sacrifice him over and we were lucky enough to make that count. Then we matriculated another run with a sac fly. It was good baseball. It was execution that we haven’t been getting, and we needed that ... Maybe we saved it for league, when we really needed it.”

Newport Harbor again had a runner reach second in the bottom of the fifth, when Seabold was hit by a pitch with one out and advanced to second on a wild pitch. But Akamatsu struck out Sean Korkmaz and Cameron Mahaffy, both looking, to get out of the jam.

“I started to get comfortable with my two-seam a little bit,” Akamatsu said. “My off-speed was good too, and my command was on today too. I usually walk a couple of guys, but today that didn’t really happen.”

Freshman leadoff hitter John Olmstead recorded the Sailors’ other hit, an infield single in the third.

Newport Harbor was retired in order in the sixth and seventh as it lost at home for the second straight day. The Sailors fell to defending CIF Southern Section Division 3 champion Redondo Union, 7-3, on Friday. Redondo is again top-ranked in Division 3.

The Sailors made a combined eight errors in the two losses, including three on Saturday.

It won’t get easier for Newport Harbor, which play host to defending Sunset League and Division 1 champion Huntington Beach on Tuesday.

“That was the intention in randomly scheduling Redondo, so we could see some plus pitching,” Chalmers said. “That’s what we’ll get against Huntington too.”

The Sailors certainly got it against Edison.

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Sunset League

Edison 3, Newport Harbor 0

SCORE BY INNINGS

E 003 000 0 -- 3 5 0

NH 000 000 0 -- 0 3 3

Akamatsu and Aoki; Sheldon, Perry (6) and Crabbe. W – Akamatsu, 2-3. L – Sheldon, 3-3.