By Pete Borello
In most sports, an expansion team’s first season is about as awkward as a sumo wrestler on rollerblades. There are plenty of flubs and falls.
Yet the Santa Clara Rangers somehow avoided this clumsy period, making it to the Palamino World Series in their inaugural season.
“That was one of the great things,” said Rangers pitcher Tristan Shuman, entering his senior year at Mountain View High. “We did it without having a foundation to build on.”
Shuman proved to be one of the key building blocks for the Rangers, a team of 17- and 18-year-olds competing at the highest level of PONY Baseball. His season stats include a 6-0 record, a stingy 2.06 ERA and 40 strike outs in 48 innings of work.
Shuman’s sixth win came in the Palamino World Series, which took place Aug. 9-12 at Santa Clara’s Washington Park. In fact, the Mountain View resident proved to be the lone Ranger to earn a victory in the eight-team, round-robin tournament.
After a 9-5 opening-game loss to St. Louis, the Rangers called upon Shuman to beat the defending national champion Kyle Chapman Reds of Houston. He delivered, despite a bushel of errors by his fielders that made Santa Clara look like, well, an expansion team.
The Rangers eked out a 12-11 win in which they allowed eight unearned runs. All eight came in a disastrous second inning, half of them with two outs.
“They hit a couple of balls that should have been caught but weren’t,” Shuman said, “and then they put up runs really quick.”
The Reds’ earned runs came in the sixth, courtesy of a three-run homer that tied the game at 11.
Shuman persevered, though, and his coach stuck with him.
“The coach has a lot of confidence in me,” the 17-year-old said.
This confidence paid off. Shuman didn’t surrender another hit and coerced the Reds’ best hitter to fly out with the bases loaded in the top of the ninth.
The Rangers scored in the bottom of the inning to seize the game and move within a win of the championship game.
But a day later, Santa Clara bowed out of the tourney with an 8-0 loss to the Orange County Marauders.
“They threw a pitcher we couldn’t hit,” said Shuman, whose team finished with a 17-5 record. “He was throwing 93-94 mph.”
The Santa Clara Red Sox, which finished a game ahead of the Rangers in league play, beat the Marauders in the final. Led by St. Francis High’s Josh Lansford, the Red Sox prevailed 8-0.
With 13 players expected to return next year, Shuman is hopeful the Rangers will be the next Santa Clara team to hoist the championship trophy.
“We probably can (contend), but it won’t be easy,” he said. “If we play like we should, we should be right up there with the good teams.”
