Orillana delivers Cebu to Series 4 crown
by Jonas Terrado
Dolphins 1, Uni-Bikers 0
Joseph Orillana made Game 2 of Baseball Philippines Series 4 finals a one-man show.
The 28-year old national team member performed an all-around effort to lead the Cebu Dolphins to their second championship in team history with a 1-0 blanking of the Dumaguete Uni-Bikers.
Orillana dominated the Dumaguete batters with his arms while droving in the game‘s only run with a surprising suicide squeeze that clinched a sweep of the best-of-three series.
Cebu, holding the most number of wins in the league’s short history with 35 victories, became the first team to capture two titles.
A former UAAP MVP with De La Salle University, Orillana allowed only four hits and walked two while striking out three batters and leaving five men on base in a complete-game shutout.
His performance earned him both the series and finals’ Most Valuable Player honors after recording a pitching record of 4-1 with an ERA of 1.32. He posted 22 strikeouts to lead Cebu with an 8-2 record in the classification phase.
But it was the bunt attempt in the bottom of the fifth inning that decided the outcome of the contest as he outwit his Dumaguete counterpart and former UAAP rival Darwin dela Calzada in a rare pitcher’s duel.
A throwing error by second baseman Bai dela Cerna enabled Jordan Orobia to rush into second base before a wild pitch by dela Calzada put him to third base.
From there, Orillana, who posted a batting average of .461 with four RBIs, two doubles and a .615 slugging percentage, stunned everyone with a perfectly placed bunt to the left side that allowed Orobia to slide home beneath the legs of catcher Edmer del Socorro.
“When coach asked me to do the play, I just bunt it on the spot where the runner won’t be tagged at home,” Orillana, drenched with an orange flavor of Gatorade by his teammates, said in Filipino. “It showed coach Saki’s trust on me and I did well in performing my duty.”
And for team manager Saki Bacarisas, who was later named as the Best Manager of Series 4, the play was worth the gamble.
“That was the bottomline of the game, we took the risk because we have a runner on third,” said Bacarisas in Filipino, who also got a Gatorade shower from his team.
Although he lost to Orillana, dela Calzada managed to pitched a no-relief effort with three strikeouts and gave up three hits and a walk to win this year’s edition of the Jun Bernardino Most Valuable Player trophy.
Dela Calzada made things interesting in the eighth frame when he drilled a deep fly to right field that bounced off the wall to produce a double. He eventually reached third while Andro Cuyugan touched into second base to threaten the Dolphins.
But Orillana forced Denver Largo to hit a pop fly to shortstop to end the inning before striking out Edmer del Socorro for the last out as Cebu celebrated another title.
Despite the loss, Dumaguete playing manager Lito Pulgo blamed crucial errors, including the one that resulted in the game’s only run, that cost them the game. However, he offered no excuses.
“If not because of the missed throw that led to the run, the game could have not yet been over,” said Pulgo in Filipino. “But for me, I think the saying that ‘if it is for you, it’s for you’ is quite true and the championship was not for us.”
It was another disappointing loss for the Uni-Bikers, which was aiming to bounce back from their crushing defeat to the Batangas Bulls in the Series 3 finals last August.
But Dumaguete suffered a stunning setback last Saturday when they blew an early 3-0 lead to lose 4-3.
San Francisco Giants’ pitcher Geno Espineli threw out the ceremonial first pitch while the Makisig Sports Channel covered the whole duration of the game. It is expected to be shown on a later date.