Liu pulls off rare feat in latest win

The Saddleback baseball team improved to 5-0 with an 8-5 win over Chaffey College on Saturday at Doug Fritz Field.  Pitcher Arthur Liu pulled off a rare feat while holding the Panthers in check for two innings.

Saddleback cruised into the top of the seventh inning holding an 8-1 lead.  Enter Arthur Liu, who was making his first appearance of the season in what seemed like an ordinary hold situation.  It turned out to be anything but normal as Liu pulled off a rare feat in striking out four opposing batters in one inning.  Liu struck out the first two batters swinging and quickly got ahead in the count on a third straight batter.  He managed to get the third batter swinging, but the pitch got past the catcher and the runner managed to beat the throw to first base to keep the inning alive.  Liu then proceeded to strike out a fourth straight batter in the inning as the Panthers never put a ball in play.

If that wasn't enough, Liu came back for the top of the eighth inning and struck out the side in order, finishing with seven strikeouts in two innings of work.

How rare is it to see four strikeouts in one inning?  As a reference point, in major league baseball, it has only happened 98 times since 1888 (134 years).  The first known player to do it in the majors was Ed Crane of the New York Gothams in 1888.  The most recent was Craig Stammen of the San Diego Padres in 2021.  

Saddleback pitchers struck out 13 Chaffey batters for the game.  Ryan Farmer started and gave up one earned-run over 4.1 innings of work in improving to 2-0 for the season. 

On offense, Saddleback wrapped out 13 hits on the afternoon with Jason Hefft leading the way.  Hefft finished 3-for-4 with two runs-scored. 

The Bobcats also took advantage of five walks, two hit batters and seven defensive errors by the Panthers.  Saddleback blew the game open in the bottom half of the fifth inning when they scored four unearned runs as a result of Chaffey committing three errors in the field. 

Saddleback is now 5-0 for the first time since the 2017 season.  The Bobcats will put their unbeaten record on the line on Monday when they host West Los Angeles College at 3:00 PM.