Loveable Underdogs: Morro Bay baseball aims to right ship, end 10-year playoff drought

When Morro Bay’s Isaac Manuputy stepped into the batter’s box for the first time this season, he wasn’t sure where to put his feet. He had to look in the dirt for clues from the previous batter.

Surprised? Don’t be. Manuputy has a good reason. The last time he hit a baseball, it was off a tee.

Manuputy is no stranger to athletics. He was the quarterback for Morro Bay’s football team and was named to the All County soccer team. But it was a deal with senior shortstop Weston Mace that brought him to the diamond.

“I said if you play football, I will play baseball,” Manuputy, still wearing his Morro Bay football T-shirt, said at practice on Wednesday. “I didn’t think he would hold me to it.”

Encouraged by boredom, the bulky senior brought his athleticism and speed to the Pirates and worked his way to a starting spot in right field, becoming one of a handful of feel-good stories on a team not used to success that is suddenly making noise in the Los Padres League.

“In the beginning, the biggest thing I was worried about was just not looking like an idiot. I didn’t know anything about baseball,” Manuputy said, adding he was about 5-years-old the last time he played T-ball. “I’m so used to tracking a football in the air, but a baseball drops a lot quicker. Hitting is hard too, but I’m finally starting to see it.”

His teammates, knowing his athletic ability and work ethic, have accepted him with open arms.

“I love having him as a teammate. He is just a great guy all around,” junior Tyler Chivens said. “He loves learning new things, and he is catching on pretty quick. He only came out maybe a week and a half before the season.”

He got his first hit and RBI of the year last week at the San Luis Obispo Spring Tournament. And luckily for him, there are plenty of other players who know the game.

Core Group

Morro Bay certainly isn’t the deepest team in the league. At batting practice on Wednesday, only 12 players took the field. Santa Ynez, for example, has double that on its roster.

But what the team lacks in depth it makes up for in pop. In a game against Nipomo on Tuesday, Morro Bay had 10 hits in a row during a 10-run inning.

Leading the way at the plate and on the mound is Chivens. The lanky redhead is second on the team with a .375 batting average on the season and has a 0.55 ERA as the No. 1 starter.

“He was like a baby deer on ice last year, but he just grew into his body,” Morro Bay head coach Nick Burger said.

Chivens said he is still a little awkward but credits his work in the offseason for his improvement.

“I picked up a little bit more velocity, and I have been working on new pitches,” Chivens said, adding he now has four pitches including a fastball, curveball, change-up and split-fastball.

Junior left-field slugger Joe Burton, who has already garnered interest from college scouts according to Burger, provides power in the middle of the lineup, and Mace has made a handful of slick defensive plays at shortstop to go along with his .312 avearge.

Add junior Kalvin Hilliard’s team-leading .379 batting average at the top of the order, and you’ve got a team that has a real chance to end a 10-year streal of futility.

Long Drought

Burger said Morro Bay baseball has made the playoffs just twice in the last 25-plus years, with the last time coming in 2006 when the team went 15-9-1 under coach Jack Greer.

“I don’t want to say they are used to losing, but losing isn’t a foreign thing,” second-year coach Nick Burger said. “I’m just trying to get the kids over the hump of coming to the field and expecting to win and truly believing that.

“I think we are there.”

The former Paso Robles and Cuesta baseball player said that when he first took over the team, players would be laughing and joking after a loss. Now it’s a surprise.

“We used to have this vibe where everything was just kind of dead,” Chivens said. “When Burger came in, it did kind of pick us up a little bit.”

And Burger has shown he’s not afraid to mix things up, whether it means starting Hilliard (who usually plays catcher) on the mound for the first time to end a losing streak, playing a former quarterback in right field or teaching the players sports psychology techniques.

“He said, ‘When you’re at the plate, just picture yourself on a beach somewhere just relaxing,’” Chivens said. “... Just to think about anything to get your mind off of the game. Because then it just makes you react.”

Next Step

At practice on Wednesday, the mantra was simple — no pop flys.

Heading into Friday’s game against Nipomo, Morro Bay (6-10, 4-5 Los Padres) sits in fifth place behind Lompoc, Santa Ynez, Templeton and Cabrillo, respectively.

Burger is confident his team can compete the rest of the way if it can start turning those pop flys into line drives, especially with runners in scoring position. The team’s batting average with runners in scoring position is around .130, Burger said. With a runner on first it’s .275.

“We have got a lot of big kids, and they all swing for the fences. We have a little everyone tries to hit the home run,” Burger said of his team with seven players over six-feet tall.

Burger is also still trying to teach Manuputy the basic fundamentals like how to catch and what a slider is.

Despite the challenges, Morro Bay is set on changing the baseball culture at the high school by the ocean.

“We are definitely trying to make the playoffs,” Manuputy said. “We are a good team. I don’t know much about baseball, but I know some of these kids can play.”

This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 7:08 PM with the headline "Loveable Underdogs: Morro Bay baseball aims to right ship, end 10-year playoff drought."