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Alvarez hurls L.A. to RBI Senior crown

By RON GUILD, Sports Editor 14.AUG.08

Jose Alvarez heads off to East L.A. College where he will be continuing his baseball career feeling on top of the world.

The Boyle Heights resident, a June graduate of Roosevelt High School, capped his summer by pitching Los Angeles to a 5-2 victory over Detroit in the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities World Series Senior (16-18) Division championship game Monday at Angels Stadium.

An All-City pitcher as a senior at Roosevelt, Alvarez earned tournament MVP honors, as much for his early appearances as the final. He pitched in three games, including one and two-thirds innings in relief of a 10-1 semifinal victory over Miami the day before at the Major League Urban Youth Academy in Compton.

Alvarez, who closed that one out for another Roosevelt product, Miguel Helguera, closed out the decisive game with a four-hit, five-strikeout performance. Only one of the runs, on Brandon Bell’s 400-foot home run over the center field fence in the second inning, was earned.

“This feels wonderful, words can’t describe it,” Alvarez said afterwards. “It’s a dream come true.”

The poise of Alvarez was instrumental in L.A. not letting an early 2-0 deficit get the better of it.

Once he adjusted to the Anaheim mound, Alvarez allowed only two more hits the rest of the way. He got into a little trouble in the seventh, but induced Al Williams to line into a game-ending double play.

“The first two innings I was getting the ball up,” he said. “It was just a matter of finding my vantage point on the mound and hitting my spots.”

L.A. coach Joey Aragon was impressed with the effort of his pitcher.

“He’s gutsy, he’s a competitor,” Aragon said. “He goes right after people. He was nails today. He got behind people, but didn’t get rattled. He battled out there.”

Though there were a couple of ugly losses (17-6 to Houston and 10-4 to Chicago) early in the tournament, L.A. actually got solid pitching once the playoff portion of the World Series began.

Compton College’s James Gonzalez pitched a 5-0 shutout over defending champion Philadelphia (which edged L.A., 2-1 in the 2007 final at Dodger Stadium) in the quarters. Helguera and Alvarez then combined to six-hit Miami in the semis.

L.A. also got its share of timely hitting.

Crenshaw grad Cameron Hart, who had an RBI-triple against Miami, singled in a run in the second and doubled home another in the seventh against Detroit.

Aided by a pair of errors by pitcher Gordy Hao, L.A. tied the score in the third inning. Adrian Williams (2 for 4) and Hart each had hits.

They broke the tie with two unearned runs in the sixth.

Frankie Sixtos singled and Joseph Williams walked. With two outs, Gonzalez drove a liner to the gap in left-center. Left fielder Mark Brown ran it down, but had the ball fall out of his glove, allowing both runners to score.

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The L.A. roster also included third baseman Eddie Almeda, an All-City performer at Roosevelt this spring.

Almeda went 1 for 3 in the semifinals and 0 for 3 in the championship game.

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Sixtos led L.A. in hitting during the Series with a .450 (9 for 20) batting average, two home runs and seven RBIs.

Helguera’s nine strikeouts in 8.1 innings ranked second among Series pitchers.