HENRY MILLER | SPECIAL TO THE MONITOR
DONNA — Orlando Hernandez was clearly flustered. After he mostly breezed through Tuesday’s first five innings, an error and two hit batsmen loaded the bases for the opposing Mercedes Tigers.
Donna North had just broken open a scoreless game with four runs in the bottom of the fifth. The winner would either make the playoffs or face Brownsville Pace in a District 32-5A play-in game. The loser was done for the season.
Hernandez, a junior lefty for Donna North, took off his hat, peered into it and stepped back onto the mound before striking out Mando Reyes to end the inning, leading the Chiefs to a 5-0 victory in the District 32-5A regular-season finale for both teams. Pace’s win over Brownsville Lopez a few minutes later set up a play-in game for the final playoff spot. The game will be played Friday with time and site to be announced today.
Hernandez said what he saw in his hat has helped him turn his season around. In his past two outings, he has thrown two seven-inning complete games, giving up one unearned run and striking out 22. Tuesday night, he allowed just one hit and struck out 10 as the Donna North resurgence continued.
“I put a note inside my hat that says throw strikes, not balls, and stay focused,” said Hernandez, who mixed up his two-seam fastball, slider, curveball and change-up to keep the Tigers off-balance throughout the night en route to his 105-pitch performance. “It’s made a difference.”
The two pitchers dominated the first four innings, which took just more than an hour to play. Mercedes pitcher Isacc Zuniga faced only one batter more than the minimum through four innings. Donna North, however, broke through for four runs in the fifth, all coming with two outs.
“We had a chance but just didn’t make a play on defense, or we could’ve been out of the inning,” Mercedes coach Armando Reyes said. “We made a couple crucial mistakes that turned into four runs and made two baserunning errors. And hats off to Donna and their pitcher — they played a great game.”
Joey Ramirez started the rally by reaching after the first baseman’s foot came off the base on a throw from second. Jose Rojas singled and Oscar Salas walked to load the bases. Leadoff hitter Gerry Sanchez, who was hit in the face by a pitch when the teams met earlier this season in Mercedes, got a little payback with a slow roller to third that wasn’t picked up cleanly and thrown away, bringing in two runs. The Chiefs scored their third run on a wild pitch, and Sanchez scored the fourth run on another error.
“He’s been our leader this year, and I told him before the game to just put the ball in play. This was time for payback,” Donna North coach LeRoy Rodriguez said. “Of course, getting hit at Mercedes wasn’t on purpose, but we wanted to stay focused and challenge our team. They stood up to the challenge.”
Donna North started 1-5 in district play. Tuesday’s win lifted the Chiefs to 6-8 in the district.
“Nobody expected us to be anywhere near the playoffs,” Rodriguez said. “But we told the kids all year that they were a good team and they could make it. Something clicked, and now we’ve got a chance. We don’t plan on letting Pace rip that away from us. We’ve worked too hard to get where we are today.”