Castle Park’s Gutierrez Just Misses Successful Ending to His Dream Game

SAN DIEGO —  Senior Cesar Gutierrez said he has had the dream since his freshman year. He wanted to pitch against Sean Rees in a championship game.

Nice, but it didn’t seem likely.

Gutierrez hadn’t started a game since he threw a 1-hitter against Montgomery in mid-April or pitched since the beginning of May. Even that was an improvement on his sophomore and junior years. He missed the sophomore season with torn ligaments in his knee, then was academically ineligible after a few games the next year.

But about 5 Tuesday afternoon, Castle Park Coach Bob Korzep decided to give Gutierrez a chance. Gutierrez found himself on the mound at the start of Wednesday’s San Diego Section 2-A championship. Pitching for Mission Bay--Sean Rees.

“Me vs. Sean Rees. I always thought about it since I played against him on JV (junior varsity),” Gutierrez said. “I knew he would be a great pitcher. I wanted to have the chance to beat him in the championship.”

Gutierrez didn’t win; Mission Bay and Rees beat Castle Park, 2-1. But Gutierrez pitched well, throwing a 3-hitter, striking out 7 and walking only 2. That was far beyond what Korzep or anyone else expected.

Korzep said he was hoping for three good innings from Gutierrez, 3-1 before the game. After that, Korzep could bring in Juan Beltran, who was 9-2.

“They saw Beltran throw a lot of curveballs the other day in the semifinals,” Korzep said. “I figured they’d be geared up to hit the curve. I wanted to get them off stride with the heat from Gutierrez and then switch up on them and make them hit the curve. Turns out we didn’t need any help.”

“He pitched the right guy,” Mission Bay Coach Dennis Pugh said. “We were expecting Beltran. But Gutierrez pitched extremely well. I knew nothing about him.”

Of his first 26 pitches, only three were balls. He struck out the side in the second inning and six in the first three innings.

That surprised Gutierrez. He said a control problem was one of the reasons he didn’t pitch much this season.

His problem Wednesday was the third inning. Gutierrez gave up two runs when he hung two curveballs. Pat Betancourt hit one for a double to drive in Tony Enomoto, and Colin Davis hit single to drive in Betancourt. Gutierrez allowed only one baserunner and no hits after that.

“That fired us up,” center fielder David Husted said.

Nothing new there. Husted said Gutierrez is always the one who gets the team going, although he usually does it with his bat. He was the ninth-leading hitter in San Diego County with a .455 average.

But Gutierrez said he wanted to do it with his arm Wednesday.

“I wanted to win this one badly,” he said. “This was my dream. Usually I’m real nervous, but today I was relaxed. But Rees won this one.”