As the Valencia Stars ran out onto the field on opening day with the youngest roster in the BBA at an average age of 25, the crowd of 49.836 fans did not know what to expect when the dreaded Krillians came into town for a three game set. Over the last five years, Valencia has not had a whole lot of luck against Bikini but then again this is a new season.
The Stars roster includes 7 rookies, 9 players with one year of experience and yet another 5 players with 2 years of experience. Bikini may have taken advantage of some of that youth by scoring two unearned runs in the first inning but things then turned into a pitchers' duel between Bikini starter Paul Worboys and Bhadrasila Chetlapalli until the sixth inning when Bhad was pulled due to hitting his pitch count of 90. Another rookie, reliever Steve Wauchape took over and pitched 2.2 scoreless innings allowing one hit and striking out three.
Meanwhile the Valencia bats started to wear down Worboys in the 7th inning as Worboys dropped the ball from the first baseman on a grounder between first and second. When reliever Masami Kichida took the mound, the floodgates opened fueled by a two-run double from Bill Nesbitt and a three-run homer by rookie Julio Sanchez. All in all, seven Valencia runners crossed the plate in the seventh accounting for the final 7 to 2 score in favor of the home team.
The opening day seemed to have angered the Bikini bats in game 2 as they pounded their way to a 13-2 victory over Valencia. There was a clerical error by the Valencia intern when doing the 7-day lineups for this game by putting in Tony Hollar as the starter even though he pitched 1.1 innings of scoreless relief the day prior instead of intended pitcher Sam MacPherson.
While Tony did ok the first two innings, he was lit up for 8 runs in the third as his arm wore down pushing the runaway train out of the station.
The Stars rebounded in game 3 with a 4 to 1 victory behind the arm of Shiro Takahashi. Shiro went 5 innings allowing one run until he hit his 90 pitches and then turned it over to the bullpen who pitched four perfect innings culminating in a save by Dave Furman.
On the offensive side of things, catcher Bernd Helwich did the majority of the damage driving in three runs with a bases-loaded triple in the sixth inning breaking a 1 to 1 tie.
When interviewed after the game, manager Roberto Solis quipped, "We are not world beaters yet by any stretch of the imagination, but it felt good to win the opening series against a playoff team from last season."
