“I really wish I had and an opportunity to work with these guys, these seniors, for a longer time,” Murphy said after the Sailors’ inability to avoid myriad mistakes, both physical and mental, led to virtually giving the Griffins (9-12, 3-7 in league) a gift-wrapped victory.
The loss dropped Newport Harbor (14-7, 4-6) into fourth place in the six-team league, the top three teams from which earn guaranteed berths into the CIF Southern Section playoffs. Newport Harbor trails third-place Fountain Valley (5-5 in league after beating Marina Wednesday) with five league games remaining.
“It has been a real crash course,” Murphy said of the ongoing baseball education of his players. “In the games we’ve lost, I can go back and point to all the mistakes that have led to us coming up a little bit short. Most of those are non-physical mistakes.”
Mental miscues, on offense and defense, helped push the Sailors farther away from reaching their ultimate goal, the program’s first postseason berth since 1990.
Four recordable errors were also problematic for the Tars, who had 12 hits to the Griffins’ seven and left twice as many runners on base (10) as the hosts.
“We can’t make the outs on the bases we made [Wednesday],” Murphy said. “And, unfortunately, they scored four of their runs on plays we should have made defensively.”
The Sailors had a runner picked off first base by the catcher, another picked off second by the pitcher, and a third nailed at the plate, when a late stop sign issued by the third-base coach led to his being caught off third trying to score from first on a double.
Two of these base-running blunders came in the fourth inning, when the first four Sailors reached base — on three hits and walk — and still the visitors failed to score.
“That’s just unacceptable,” Murphy said. “You can’t win games doing that.”
