California Baseball Day 10: Visalia Rawhide

California Baseball: Day 10

Visalia Rawhide

We ended our two-day break from baseball on another lively summer morning, descending from the Sierra Nevada past Lake Kaweah and back into the Central Valley of California. Huge, mature citrus trees -- their deep-green leaves a sharp contrast against the backdrop of sun-scorched hills – emerged at the first sign of flat land in the town of Lemon Cove.

Our destination was Visalia, another California city with an economy focused on agriculture. Aside from citrus, farmers in this part of the valley grow a lot of cotton, grapes, and olives. Livestock is also big. But commercial business and light manufacturing industries are what have grown Visalia from a population of 92,000 to 135,000 in just 20 years.

Danny and I arrived in town with some time to kill before our game. We had lunch at Red Robin (Danny’s favorite), then drove to the local fun center. I envisioned doing the batting cages and go-karts to get ourselves active, but it was another oppressively hot day. We fled inside and did a round of laser tag instead.

As the heat over the valley began to recede, we drove to Recreation Park to see our ballgame for the night, a California League matchup between the Modesto Nuts and the Visalia Rawhide. The Class A-Advanced affiliate of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Rawhide had been tearing up the league this season, running away with the first-half title in the California League North and featuring prominently in the North’s 7-1 win over the South in the league’s All-Star game just two days earlier.

Visalia’s history in the California League dates to 1946, when the Visalia Cubs joined the reorganized league after World War II. Visalia teams have affiliated with nine different Major League teams and have been known over the years as the Stars, Redlegs, Athletics, White Sox, Mets, Oaks, and the Central Valley Rockies. In 2009, two years after joining the Diamondbacks organization, the team became the Rawhide.

Visalia baseball’s most celebrated alumni is Hall-of-Famer Kirby Puckett, who hit .314 for the Visalia Oaks in 1983. Puckett’s performance vaulted him through Triple-A and up to the big leagues the next year, beginning a 12-year career with the Minnesota Twins in which he made the All-Star team 10 times. Puckett was only the second player in history to record 2,000 hits in 10 years but was forced to retire in 1996 due to a retinal occlusion that caused vision loss. At the time, his .318 career MLB batting average was the highest of any American League right-handed hitter since Joe DiMaggio.

Other famous alumni – illustrating the variety of Major League teams affiliated with Visalia -- include All-Stars Chuck Knoblach, Barry Zito, Evan Longoria, Max Scherzer, and Paul Goldschmidt. Tom Kelly, who won two World Series titles with the Twins, managed here in 1979-80.

For is entire 73-year history, the club has played in Downtown Visalia at Recreation Park, the smallest Major League-affiliated ballpark in America. The ballpark has only 1,888 permanent seats, and its total capacity is just 2,468, counting lawn seating. Its most interesting feature is a 40-foot-long red barn that serves as part of the wall in right field, with home runs landing on its slanted roof. The barn is “home” to the Rawhide’s mascot, Tipper the Holstein Bull, and was built as a community barn-raising event to raise awareness for Habitat for Humanity.

It was Mustache Appreciation Night at Recreation Park. Fans who showed up wearing mustaches — real or fake — received discounted tickets. Danny was in the clear with his full, natural mustache and beard. I had purchased a novelty mustache before the trip for my cheap seat. The mustaches were very much in line with the western theme of the ballpark, with its barn, Old West decorations, and the ever-present sound of rattling cowbells and clanging triangles.

We made a brief stop in the souvenir shop down the right-field line to admire the sharp hats, jerseys and other apparel on display in a variety of Rawhide themes — Visalia logos as a cattle brand, Holstein horns, and the confidently grinning Tipper logo worn when the team takes part in Minor League Baseball’s Copa de la Diversión outreach to Hispanic and Latino communities as the Visalia Toros.

Against the Nuts, Visalia started right-hander Josh Green, who had a dominating 2018 in Short Season A ball with the Hillsboro Hops, putting up a measly 1.09 ERA in 33 innings. With Visalia in 2019, he continued to deal with a hot hand, posting a 1.73 ERA in 14 games before being called up to the AA Jackson Generals.

Green gave Visalia another terrific start on this night, allowing just one run on four hits in five innings against the Nuts, and ringing up seven strikeouts in the process.

The Nuts countered with Penn Murphee, whom we had seen pitch a scoreless inning to start our game in Modesto. In contrast to Green and his pronounced overhand pitching motion, Murphee slings the ball mostly sidearm. Whereas Green shifts his weight a little left on his delivery to accommodate his overhand arc, Murphee’s body moves to the right as he steps toward the plate, which increases torque and helps him whip the ball toward the batter at an angle.

Two very different styles produced the same result. Murphee matched Green with his own fine performance, also giving up just one run on four hits in five innings. As we entered the sixth, the game was tied 1-1.

Two key offensive catalysts were responsible for the runs from both teams. Visalia’s designated hitter, LT Tolbert, doubled and scored off Murphee in the first inning, continuing his impressive season that began with the A-ball Kane County Cougars, where he hit .313. Promoted to Visalia, he kept on hitting, racking up a .331 average in 62 games and earning another promotion to AA Jackson.

Modesto’s run in the second was sparked by a double from 21-year-old All-Star infielder Joe Rizzo, a second-round pick of the Mariners who would finish his season in Modesto with a .295 average while playing first, second, and third base.

*Visalia DH LT Tolbert, who doubled and scored in the first inning..*

*Tolbert rounds third to score the first run of the game.*

The crowd was high-spirited for much of the night during this pitcher’s duel, and there was good entertainment on the field between innings: kids engaged in a tire-rolling race and a sprint around the infield, grown men wrapped in inflated balls slamming into each other like jousting knights of old.

And because it was Mustache Appreciation Night, a station was set up along the third-base-side home dugout offering free mustache and beard trimming. There’s always something happening at Minor League ballparks.

The excellent pitching kept coming. Visalia’s Green was relieved by lefty Mack Lemieux, who threw three dominating scoreless innings, giving up just one hit with no walks and five strikeouts. He would end his year in Visalia with a crisp 1.54 ERA in 33 games, really hitting his stride following three solid but unremarkable Minor League seasons.

After Murphee’s unorthodox sidearm delivery had stymied Rawhide batters, Modesto doubled down, bringing in Collin Kober, a genuine submarine-style pitcher. He notched three scoreless innings of his own.

Right-hander Luis Castillo came on to pitch a scoreless ninth for Visalia, as the prospect of extra innings began to loom large.

In the bottom of the ninth, Joey Gerber took the mound for Modesto and quickly tallied a popout and strikeout, then walked light-hitting third baseman Alex King. That brought up shortstop Giancarlos Cintron, who smacked a fastball deep into right-center field that seemed certain to score King from first and end the game.

The #1 Minor League prospect in the Mariners system, Jarred Kelenic, sprinted from his spot in center field toward the ball, which seemed to hang for an extra moment in the warm night air. Kelenic leaped forward with abandon, fully extended, and snagged the ball just in front of Visalia’s red barn. It was easily the finest defensive play we saw on the trip; Kelenic could not have thrown his body at a more perfect angle to intercept the flight of the ball.

Shaken up along the warning track, Kelenic took a good 20 seconds to gather himself before trotting back to the dugout. As the stunned crowd expecting a big win fell into silence, Modesto Nuts broadcaster Keaton Gillogly could be heard roaring from his booth, “Oh my, what a play by Jarred Kelenic!”

A former first round pick and the 6th overall pick of the 2018 draft, Kelenic started the 2019 season playing A-ball in West Virginia, then moved up to High-A Visalia, and by August was with the AA Arkansas Travelers of the Texas League. He received a great deal of notice during the Mariners’ Spring training camp in 2020, crushing his first home run in a big-league uniform on March 2.

So it was on to the 10th inning, and another opportunity to see the new Minor League rule in which teams begin with a runner on second base in extra innings. Castillo safely navigated his half of the inning, pitching around Rizzo but otherwise staying out of trouble.

Nuts reliever Scott Boches took over for Gerber and gave up an intentional walk to Tolbert, then got the next two batters out. That brought Rawhide center fielder Jake McCarthy to the plate. A first-round pick in 2018 out of the University of Virginia, McCarthy choked up and slapped a single to center, scoring the winning run for Visalia.

Players ran onto the field and showered McCarthy with Gatorade. There would be a lot more to celebrate in 2019. The Rawhide took an 83-53 record into the playoffs, swept San Jose 3-0 in the semifinals, and beat the Lake Elsinore Storm 3-1 for Visalia’s first California League title since the Visalia Oaks won it all in 1978. Mack Lemieux was named the series MVP, pitching 4 2/3 scoreless innings in relief over three games.

The cowbells must have echoed for days.

Highlight Reel

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