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“It’s not over till it’s over.”
The baseball saying popularized by Yankee catcher Yogi Berra was
again proven true Sunday in Cebu’s 8-6 victory over Makati City in
Baseball Philippines Series 3 at the Rizal Memorial ballpark.
Seeing what looked like a safe 6-1 advantage
forged after six-and-a-half innings disappeared in just one frame,
the Dolphins called on the heroics of reliever and winning pitcher
Jeffrey Ardio and starter Joseph Orillana at the top of the ninth to
salvage their fifth win in seven games.
Ardio, who took the mound from a semi-retired
Sandy Cerillo in the eighth, led off the Dolphins’ two-hit,
two-run attack with a single in that pivotal frame that was capped
by another run-scoring base-hit by Orillana.
The slim, 5’8” Ardio, who doused cold water
on the Mariners’ uprising by retiring the side in 1-2-3 order in
the previous frame, actually scored the Dolphins’ only needed
marker on a pair of errors by Makati second baseman Cris Canlas, who
dropped Edsel Atienza’s easy grounder then threw wild to first
baseman Haruta Estanislao.
Orillana, whose three-hit, one-run show in the
first five innings handed the Dolphins a 6-1 edge until replaced by
Cerillo, returned to the mound in the ninth to finish the Mariners.
“I wanted to reserve Joseph [Orillana] for our
next game Sunday against Manila that’s why I removed him in favor
of Cerillo. Luckily he still had one more inning to pitch allowing
me to field him back,” said Cebu coach Zacarias Bacarisas.
A pitcher who worked for six innings cannot be
used in the team’s following game.
Almost drowned by Bacarisas’ move was the
grandslam homer in the seventh belted out by Joel Binarao, another
semi-retired campaigner in the Cebu roster, that accounted for that
6-1 lead.
Also nearly wiped out were the heroics of actor
Richard Gomez, who accounted for Cebu’s first of two runs in the
second and ignited that four-run binge in the seventh with a single.
The game between league-leading Manila and
Dumaguete City was rained out with the Sharks enjoying a 4-3 lead
after four completed innings.
-- Eddie Alinea
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