Alexander: The return of Dodgers’ Dustin May is a qualified success

• April 1, 2023

LOS ANGELES — Remember what Dustin May looked like early in the 2021 season, before his elbow betrayed him?

Remember how he had such command, the pitches were moving as if he controlled them with a joystick? And remember the joy and the passion with which he pursued his craft, the big kid with the curly mop of red hair bouncing all over the place?

He’s back.

Better than ever? It’s awfully early to make that declaration, but consider: May got into, and through, the seventh inning for the first time in his major league career Friday night against Arizona – the first time, in fact, since a Double-A appearance for Tulsa in June of 2019, just six weeks before he was called up to the Dodgers – and he made it almost look easy.

He was sprinting to the mound to start innings and actually skipped off the mound after ending an inning with a strikeout. And while the first start of the season is obviously a small sample size, it suggests that one of the many uncertainties with the 2023 Dodgers might be a little less uncertain today.

May threw 84 pitches against the Diamondbacks, 56 for strikes, hitting 100 mph with two first-inning pitches and later settling into a 96-98 mph groove with his four-seamer. But only one of those fastballs accounted for a swing and miss; he had eight for the game, half of them finishing off his four strikeouts, and three came on sinkers, two on curveballs and two on cutters, according to Baseball Savant.

But he was efficient, getting nine outs on the ground and two popups and only a handful of hard-hit balls, and walking just one.

This is what the Dodgers, and their fan base, have been waiting for, dating to the night of his debut against the Padres in 2019, when the idea was that they were unleashing their latest pitching phenom.

(For what it’s worth, they didn’t win that night against San Diego, a 5-2 loss in which he gave up four runs, three earned, in 5-2/3 innings. And they didn’t win Friday night, either, because Kyle Lewis took a hanging slider from reliever Alex Vesia in the eighth and turned a 1-0 Dodger lead into what turned out to be a 2-1 Arizona victory.)

I00t has been a circuitous route for May to this point, one that was derailed on that Sunday afternoon in Milwaukee two years ago when he walked off the mound with uncertainty.

The suggestion that maybe it’s too soon to say he’s better than ever? Manager Dave Roberts doesn’t quite agree.

“I’ll tell you, I think he’s better than he was before,” Roberts said. “And I say that because, you know, going through that rehab process, there’s a maturity that has to happen. And I think that that’s one component. The delivery is as consistent as I’ve ever seen it. And so for me, I think the net he’s a better major league pitcher than he was, you know, call it 18, 19 months ago.”

The passion is still there, and May said it had never left. There was that skip off the mound after he fanned Geraldo Perdomo in the fifth – the first time he’s done that, May said.

“It was kind of unintentional, but I had already bounced back up and I had already spun, so I just kept going,” he said.

And there are the times he self-corrects, loudly enough to be heard throughout a spring training ballpark, but not so evident amid a big crowd in a big league stadium.

“I’ve always been, wear my heart on my (sleeve) when I’m on the mound,” he said.

Said Roberts before Friday’s game: “I don’t want to take the emotions away from him, because he’s an emotional guy and that’s what makes him tick, and he feeds off that. But I do think there’s been a concerted effort in trying to manage it a little bit better.”

May said he was ready to make his case to return to the mound for the seventh, but Roberts didn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t continue, because of the low pitch count.

“He was very efficient,” Roberts said. “I think that he got pushed to where he wanted to go. But Dustin is a guy that floods the strike zone, puts the ball in play. And I just didn’t think these guys were getting good swings off him for the most part. And so I just thought versus right, versus left, it just didn’t make any sense to go to anybody (else) at that point in time.”

Said May: “If he had come over I’d have tried to bargain with him to go back out. But he didn’t, he let me go back out, so that was a good confidence boost for me. … I was super excited that he trusted me to go back out and get three more outs.”

It was, he said, very encouraging, and something to build on. And when asked how close he is to his pre-surgery self, he answered:

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“I feel pretty close. I mean, I don’t know what the difference would be between before and right now. Everything’s been feeling pretty in line, so I’ve just got to keep going.”

It is a very positive sign for the top of the Dodgers’ rotation if May, slotted between Julio Urías and Clayton Kershaw, can be not only as good as his old self but better.

And maybe it’s part of what might be a more interesting season than all of those 100-win campaigns. This is a team with questions, and we obviously won’t get all or even most of the answers right away.

The exploration process will be sometimes nerve-racking, occasionally agonizing on nights like Friday, but it will seldom be dull.

[email protected]

​ Orange County Register 

How to get the most out of your garden center veggie packs

• April 1, 2023

Q. I really need your help, I’m a fairly good gardener but lack knowledge when it comes to veggie packs that are lush and vibrant. Whether planted in the ground or large containers, they end up dying. How can I overcome this dilemma?

A. Veggie packs, as sold in most garden centers, can be tricky to plant out successfully for several reasons. Once the plants arrive at the retail location, they often are allowed to dry out, which can stress the plants. Find out when the growers deliver the plants and try to get to the garden center on that day or at least the morning after. 

Most vegetables and herbs are sold with far too many plants in each cell or container. I once purchased a 4-inch pot of leeks that contained over 50 individual plants! If I were to plant that clump in the ground, none of the leeks would ever get much bigger than an individual chive plant. The pot looked gorgeous and lush, but it was overstuffed. Realistically, only about 3 or 4 leeks should have been in that 4-inch pot, but then it wouldn’t have looked as pretty. I put the clump of leeks into a bucket of water and carefully teased as many individual plants out as I could. 

In some cases, you can break the root ball in half, or just loosen it up a bit to give the plants a little extra room. This works when there are only 5 or 10 individual plants in each pot or cell. This will inevitably damage the roots, so it’s a good idea to trim the top half of the plant to give the roots a chance to recover.

Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants usually have 2 or 3 plants per cell or pot, but that’s still too many. If you can’t tease them apart, just cut the extra plants off at the soil surface so you’re left with just one.

When planting, dig a hole two or three times as wide as the root ball and backfill it with compost. When planting tomatoes, remove the lower leaves and plant deep enough so that several inches of stem are buried. Those little bumps on the tomato stem will turn into roots, which will give the plant a better start.

Make sure you press the soil firmly into the hole so there are no air pockets around the roots. Make a watering basin by pushing the soil into a raised ring around the base of the plant. You should have a “donut” that’s about 12 inches across. Fill the watering basin with water, let it sink in, then fill it again. Right after planting, those baby plants will need extra attention, especially in the form of daily watering.

Finally, we like to mulch the new plants with fresh grass clippings. Once they are sprinkled around the seedlings and watered, they form a lightweight mat that doesn’t interfere with the new plants’ growth but keeps the weeds at bay. This should only be done if you haven’t used any kind of weed control or killer on your grass.

Los Angeles County

[email protected]; 626-586-1988; http://celosangeles.ucanr.edu/UC_Master_Gardener_Program/

Orange County

[email protected]; 949-809-9760; http://mgorange.ucanr.edu/

Riverside County

[email protected]; 951-683-6491 ext. 231; https://ucanr.edu/sites/RiversideMG/

San Bernardino County

[email protected]; 909-387-2182; http://mgsb.ucanr.edu

​ Orange County Register 

The Trump Show: Are we really going to do this again?

• April 1, 2023

“Trump transforms primary,” read a push notification on my phone recently.

“Trump’s new rage,” read another.

I had the same reaction to both: Are we really doing this again?

Really?

With or without the indictment that came this week, how is everyone not sick of this?

The first of the two Axios articles reports that Trump is currently outpolling other Republican presidential hopefuls nationally in a new Monmouth poll.

Other candidates are underperforming at the moment, but it’s early and Trump has consistently benefitted from a wide field and support from the 40% of Republicans who just love him — the Forever Trumpers.

While it’s thankfully not a majority who support him, there’s still far too many who are not exhausted and bored by the Trump Show.

For someone who claims not to be a politician, Trump can’t seem to move on.

The second Axios article played one of Trump’s greatest hits: abandoning a short-lived, disciplined approach to campaigning for his usual campaign-by-grievance tactics.

This time he’s apparently lashing out at everyone over a potential indictment and playing footsies with violence.

“Our country is being destroyed, as they tell us to be peaceful!” Trump tweeted (or whatever you call posting on his Truth Social platform).

Subtle!

Considering he already caused one angry mob to try to overthrow the government, he just doesn’t have a lot of credibility when he claims these comments aren’t meant to incite violence.

Of course, I can’t seem to find any attempt to walk back his comments. Fortunately, his attempts to bring on protests have so far been a bust.

I’ve been called a Never Trumper, but it’s really an inappropriate term because it implies that I’m a single-issue voter, which I’m not.

Sure, I have never and will never vote for Trump, but that’s because he fails on a range of issues important to me.

As a conservative, there’s very little to like. Trump tears down American institutions, he has zero respect for veterans who disagree with his worldview (which means he has zero respect for veterans), the people he surrounds himself with are often absurd, he’s anti-free trade, he sucks up to dictators, he refuses to meaningfully address the federal budget and he’s a blowhard.

As a Christian, the lies, the immaturity, the name-calling, the lack of character, the lack of respect for Christians (holding up a Bible he’s clearly never read while park police were tear-gassing Americans is disqualifying enough) and the lack of humility all make him impossible to support.

As a Republican, he has not only wasted eight, and possibly 12, years of my presidential choices, but he also degraded the party and inspired some of the worst candidates in recent memory, leading to blown chances for a Republican-controlled Senate in both 2020 and 2022.

He almost single-handedly turned Georgia blue and lost a seemingly-unloseable Senate seat in Alabama by backing a candidate accused of dating minors when he was in his 30s.

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What advantage does he provide Republicans? We often hear he’s the only Republican who can win the presidency, but he already lost.

Being without him for a while, I had forgotten how deeply hostile and annoying he can be. But then I browsed his Truth Social account and was immediately reminded of the endless stream of mindless tweets (or whatever).

Lots of talk about Florida Gov. Ron “Desanctimonious” DeSantis, “Horseface” Stormy Daniels and the New York district attorney.

These insults are so lame. If you heard a standup comedian with those jokes, you’d walk out. If you heard a CEO say them, you’d walk out and there’d be a lawsuit. Shouldn’t the standard be higher for the president?

The first season of the Trump Show was bad; a second will only be worse.

Can we please change the channel now?

Follow Matt on Twitter @FlemingWords

​ Orange County Register 

California policymakers are trying to chip away at open government for their own convenience

• April 1, 2023

California’s open meetings laws, the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act of 1967 and the Ralph M. Brown Act of 1953, inscribed into state law these words: “The people of this State do not yield their sovereignty to the agencies which serve them. The people, in delegating authority, do not give their public servants the right to decide what is good for the people to know and what is not good for them to know. The people insist on remaining informed so that they may retain control over the instruments they have created.”

The laws require the meetings of state and local government entities including public commissions, boards, councils and other agencies to be in-person, open to the public, and announced in advance. Remote participation is allowed at meetings only if the “teleconference” location is open to the public and an advance notice and agenda are posted there.

In March 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-29-20, which waived the in-person requirements “only during the period in which state or local public health officials have imposed or recommended social distancing measures.” A law signed last year, Assembly Bill 2449, allowed remote meetings under more circumstances, but only until 2026.

Now that the COVID emergency has ended in California, a number of bills have been introduced to permanently change the open meetings laws so that remote meetings may continue forever without an emergency.

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For example, Sen. Anthony Portantino has authored Senate Bill 411 to eliminate the in-person meetings requirement from local agencies and regional boards and commissions, where members must often travel long distances, as well as from neighborhood council meetings where the distances are not far at all.

A blog post on the website of the California Council of Governments, which has 47 member agencies including the massive Southern California Association of Governments, said it’s time-consuming for local elected officials to travel to regional council meetings.

We think it’s important for government officials to show up in person to face the people they govern, rather than drop in remotely and click away again. If they are required to attend so many meetings of so many councils and boards that they simply can’t get to them all, perhaps we should consider whether we just have too much government.

​ Orange County Register 

King, the emaciated sea lion rescued in Redondo Beach, back in the ocean

• April 1, 2023

The air was brisk, the sun shining and the waves were breaking on the sand — as King, the wayward sea lion, returned to the ocean.

The young sea lion, which had spent the past two months on the mend at San Pedro’s Marine Mammal Care Center, briskly flopped his way to the Cabrillo Beach waterline on Friday, March 31, as a couple of dozen onlookers bid him a cheerful send-off.

“Go King!” shouted one spectator watching the sea lion, who in January had wandered, malnourished, into Redondo Beach’s King Harbor Yacht Club, where he was found curled up next to the stove in the warm kitchen.

King, who is named after the yacht club, wasted no time bounding out of his rehabilitation crate on the beach and into the cold Pacific waters that were home. With another recovered sea lion companion — King ws among four total that were released Friday — he bobbed through the waves and into the ocean until he disappeared from view.

“Oh, they’re so happy,” one onlooker said, watching the sea lions dip in and out through the waves on their journey home.

Among the well-wishers on the beach was Pat Light, volunteer membership chair at the King Harbor Yacht Club in Redondo Beach, who was there the night the sea lion was discovered in the kitchen.

“It’s just so exciting to see,” she said of the release early Friday morning.

Light was joined by several others from the yacht club who assisted in King’s rescue. They received a special invitation to be there from the Marine Mammal Care Center, where King has been recovering all this time.

“He looks great,” said Light, who recalled how skinny and lethargic the pup was just a few months ago.

For John Warner, the CEO of the Marine Mammal Care Center that nursed King back to health, it was “a joyful day, to be sure.”

It was after the dinner hour, around 9 p.m., on Jan. 26, when King was found. The skinny pup had somehow crawled up onto a dock, then up a ramp and around a back patio to slip inside the warm kitchen at the King Harbor Yacht Club.

Estimated to be about 6 or 7 months old at the time, the pup was first spotted by Lupe Ruiz, the club’s food manager, who told Light, “We have something in the kitchen I need to show you.”

At the time, Light said in a Feb. 1 interview, “I thought, ‘Well, that’s unusual.”

And then the big question was what to do next.

Police officers initially responded to their call. But eventually, someone knew to contact the rescue group that works with the Marine Mammal Care Center, a rehab facility that takes in sick and injured sea lions and harbor seals.

The story from there was a happy one. The pup did well, said Marine Mammal Care Center veterinarian Lauren Palmer, who got the call that evening that he was being brought in.

King weighed about 31 pounds, and needed tube-feeding and hydration. But other than malnutrition, he didn’t seem to have any other health problems, Palmer said at the time.

Within a few days, the pup was eating some “pretty good-sized fish,” Palmer said.

By the time he was released on Friday, King weighed 95 pounds.

“He enjoyed his meals,” Palmer, who also was on hand for the ocean release, said on Friday. “He’s definitely a consumer.”

While the 95 pounds is a bit heavier than the goal weight, she said, the winter months, especially with all the recent cold weather and rain, required a bit extra.

“We think it gives them a better chance if they have a few extra pounds,” Palmer said.

Melanie Lundquist, who, along with her husband, Richard, is a Marine Mammal Care Center donor, also watched King and the other sea lions return home Friday.

Ultimately, she said, she’d like to see the center expand.

Currently, it’s on Los Angeles Unified School District property, within Angels Gate Park on Gaffey Street, and can hold about 120 pups, but fewer adult sea lions. Warner, who took over the San Pedro facility in January after coming from the larger Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, said he would also like to see the center add a saltwater pool to its fresh-water recovery pools.

The Marine Mammal Care Center is the only center of its kind serving the large L.A. coastal area between Malibu to the north and Seal Beach to the south.

“We really don’t have what we need,” Lundquist said of the San Pedro center. The mission, she said, “is to make sure we care for the (environmental) mess we’ve made.”

​ Orange County Register 

Here’s a checklist for commercial property owners or tenants

• April 1, 2023

Saturday was April Fool’s day, and I wish I had a pithy prank but my reservoir of humor ran dry.

However, with the dawning of spring, the crack of the baseball bat on opening day, Easter, the Masters golf tournament and the NCAA final four, spring has officially sprung, and the first quarter of 2023 is officially in the books.

Last week I wrote about the economy and its 2023 balance, so today I’ll focus on what you should have accomplished in the first quarter. Don’t despair, if you didn’t get it done, there’s still time.

Review lease agreements

Now would be a great time to put your hands on a fully executed copy of your lease and any extensions. Make sure all are signed by both parties.

You don’t want to be scrambling around during a critical date with a half-executed document. This is best done at the end of a year with a careful eye toward any upcoming expirations, options to extend, rent increases or options to purchase, etc.

But what if you occupy a building you own? Should you have a lease agreement with your operating company? Absolutely! I could write an entire column on the horrors of handshake agreements between related entities.

Taxes

Normally, corporate returns should have been filed by March 15 and personal by April 15, but this year, thanks to storm damage across the state, we get to sleep in until Oct. 15.

Check with your tax professional as situations may vary. If your attempting to perfect a tax-deferred exchange, according to the IRS, the agency has extended the 45-day and 180-day 1031 exchange deadlines for eligible taxpayers. Those who qualify now have an extended general dostponement date of Oct. 16 to find a replacement property and close on a 1031 exchange transaction.

Maintenance expenses

Your landlord may lump all of your operating expenses into an annual amount and bill you on a monthly basis.

Typically, budgeting for this occurs in October so that invoicing can begin in January. Taken into account are things such as property taxes, insurance and maintenance. If you pay too much or too little during a calendar year, the amounts are reconciled in the first quarter.

If you’ve not received a reconciliation for common area maintenance, I’d suggest phoning your owner.

Are all your entities active?

A good time to check this is during tax time, but since the filing window for taxes has moved, make sure you’ve paid the state for those corporate filings.

Check on business licenses as well. We represented a seller a few years ago who hadn’t paid his LLC filing fees for 28 years! You can imagine the drama and expenses necessary to reactivate his entity so that we could transact.

Take a look at all of the physical elements of your commercial real estate, too.

Now that the rain has (hopefully) subsided until fall, your roof may need more than a seasonal patch. With the crunch of repairs causing roofers sleepless nights, you might actually be able to hire one.

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Now is a great time to check on your air conditioning as the hot months will be here soon. The sump pump on your truck well got a good workout last quarter. Make sure he’s up for the next soaking.

Last but not least, plans for the balance of the year.

Is a move in your future? With industrial vacancies still at historic lows, don’t wait until 90 days prior to expiration to commence the search. Most will agree a year to 18 months is appropriate for a proper search, negotiation, fit and relocation.

Allen C. Buchanan, SIOR, is a principal with Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services in Orange. He can be reached at [email protected] or 714.564.7104.

​ Orange County Register 

NBA, players reach deal on new 7-year labor agreement

• April 1, 2023

By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer

The NBA will have labor peace for years to come.

The league and its players came to an agreement late Friday night PT on a new seven-year collective bargaining agreement, the NBA announced. It is still pending ratification, though that process is almost certainly no more than a formality.

The deal will begin this summer and will last at least through the 2028-29 season. Either side can opt out then; otherwise, it will last through 2029-30.

Among the details, per a person familiar with the negotiations who spoke to The Associated Press: the in-season tournament that Commissioner Adam Silver has wanted for years will become reality, and players will have to appear in at least 65 games in order to be eligible for the top individual awards such as Most Valuable Player. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because neither the league nor the National Basketball Players Association released specifics publicly.

The NBA is curbing the ability of the highest-spending teams, such as the Golden State Warriors and the Clippers, to continue running up salary and luxury tax spending while still maintaining mechanisms to add talent to the roster. There will now be a second luxury tax level that, when reached, will keep teams from using their midlevel exception to sign players. That was a clear compromise, given how some teams wanted the so-called “upper spending limit” that would have essentially installed an absolute ceiling on what can be spent each season and help balance the playing field between the teams that are willing to pay enormous tax bills and those who aren’t.

As a counter to those spending limitations, the new CBA is expected to create more spending and trade opportunities for teams at the middle and lower spectrum of spending. There will be an opening of more opportunities in the free agent market, including larger trade exceptions.

Not in the CBA is a change to the policy that would allow high school players to enter the NBA draft. It was discussed and has been an agenda item for months, but it won’t be changing anytime soon – probably not for at least the term of the next CBA.

“We also appreciate that there is a lot of benefit to really having veterans who can bring those 18-year-olds along,” NBPA executive director Tamika Tremaglio said in February during an NBPA news conference at All-Star weekend. “And so, certainly anything that we would even consider, to be quite honest, would have to include a component that would allow veterans to be a part of it as well.”

The in-season tournament could arrive as soon as the 2023-24 season. The event will include pool-play games that are part of the regular-season schedule beginning in November – with eight teams advancing to a single-elimination tournament in December. The Final Four will be held at a neutral site, with Las Vegas reportedly part of that discussion. Each in-season tournament game would count toward regular-season standings, and the two finalists would ultimately play 83 regular-season games. Winning players and coaches will earn additional prize money.

There is an increase in two-way contract slots, reportedly from two to three per team. Two-way contracts were created in the 2017 CBA as a way for teams to develop younger players. It has been seen as a success, as it’s become a route to players earning long-term homes in the league, and in several cases becoming major contributors (the Lakers developed Austin Reaves and Alex Caruso that way).

Silver said Wednesday, at the conclusion of a two-day Board of Governors meeting, that he was hopeful of getting a deal done by the weekend. He also said there had been no consideration – at least on the league’s part – of pushing the opt-out date back for a third time.

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The current CBA, which took effect July 1, 2017, came with a mutual option for either the NBA or the NBPA to opt out after six seasons – June 30 of this year. The sides originally had a Dec. 15 deadline to announce an intention to exercise the opt-out, then pushed it back to Feb. 8, then to Friday.

The league and the union continued talking after the midnight ET opt-out deadline passed, and a deal was announced nearly three hours later.

The agreement doesn’t end the process, though it’s obviously a huge step forward.

The owners will have to vote on what the negotiators have hammered out, and the players will have to vote to approve the deal as well. Then comes the actual writing of the document – the most recent CBA checked in at around 600 pages containing nearly 5,000 paragraphs and 200,000 words. Much of it will be the same; much of it will need revising.

​ Orange County Register 

Marina softball tops No. 2 Esperanza in extra innings in Carew Classic

• April 1, 2023

ANAHEIM — Freshman pitcher Mia Valbuena held her composure despite seeing the Marina softball team leave 12 runners on base.

It eventually took eight innings, but the Vikings beat Esperanza 6-3 in the opening round of the Michelle Carew Classic on Friday afternoon.

Esperanza (14-3) is ranked No. 2 in Orange County and Marina (16-1) is ranked No. 6.

“We let Mia be Mia,” Marina co-coach Dan Hay said of the team’s freshman standout, who pitched all eight innings and allowed two earned runs on four hits. “She is good enough to pitch out of jams. She does her job, as long as her defense has her back, she will be successful. For a freshman, she is pretty stoic. She just stays on task and does what she needs to do.”

Marina, ranked No. 1 in CIF-SS Division 2, also defeated Murrieta Mesa 6-1 in a second-round game Friday night.

The Vikings will play St. Francis, the No. 1 team in the Bay Area, in the semifinals of the Gold Bracket on Saturday at 3:15 p.m. at Peralta Park in Anaheim.

Against Esperanza, Marina left five runners on base in the first three innings, and the Aztecs scored first thanks to a two-run single by Calista Van Artsdalen in the bottom of the third.

Marina left two more runners on base in the fourth inning.

“It happens,” Valbuena said of the runners left on base. “Not everyone is going to get a hit, but you just have to pick up your team.”

The Vikings finally broke through with Anaya Togia’s double to center field that sent Makayla Mathis home.

Marina’s Makayla Mathis went 4 for 5 and scored her team’s first run in a 6-3 victory over Esperanza in the first round of the Michelle Carew Classic on Friday, March 31, 2023. (Photo by Manny Alvarez)

Togia also scored on the play as a throw to second base ricocheted off Togia’s foot and went into left field, and she came around to tie the score 2-2.

Marina took a 3-2 lead in the sixth inning on a throw that went past the third baseman, allowing Courtney Hames to score.

Esperanza tied the score in the bottom of the seventh inning. After a double by pinch-hitter Erin Bigani, pinch runner Dani Vegar scored on a ground out by Charley Duran.

Marina took the lead in the eighth inning on a play that initially drew a strong reaction from Esperanza coach Ed Tunstall.

On a ground ball hit to third base by Hallie Piramo, Marina’s Averie Prescott was caught in a rundown between third and home. Prescott was tagged out, but the umpires called obstruction on Esperanza, awarding Prescott to score the go-ahead run.

“It was the umpires call,” Tunstall said. “I didn’t see it that way, but that’s why he’s an umpire and I’m the coach. I didn’t see an obstruction. I saw the runner go back to third base, she was not trying to advance home. Umpire saw otherwise.”

The Vikings added a pair of runs in the inning thanks to RBI singles from Gabby DiBenedetto and Rachel Ruiz.

Valbuena finished the game to earn the victory for the Vikings.

Mathis went 4 for 5 at the plate for Marina.

“We kept saying that we’re going to get this, we’re on them,” Mathis said. “We had to get the runs in. We kept leaving runners in scoring position. We finally just said we’re going to get this done and we got it. We finally just clicked and jumped on them.”

Duran threw 2 2/3 innings of relief for Esperanza.

​ Orange County Register