Reviewing the Orange County baseball surveys coaches returned back in February, Mission Viejo was rarely mentioned as a team to watch.
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Today, Mission Viejo is the Sea View League champion and will be a team to watch in the CIF Southern Section playoffs that begin next week.
The Diablos play at Alemany in the Division 2 first round Thursday.
The Diablos are 20-8 overall. They went 9-3 in the Sea View League to finish three games above second-place teams Beckman and San Juan Hills.
Mission Viejo takes a 10-game winning streak into the playoffs.
“At one time we were 7-7,” said Mission Viejo coach Daniel Holley, in his fifth season as the team’s coach. “We always thought that if we pitched pretty well and got a few runs, we’d be OK.”
Mission Viejo averaged 3.6 runs in their 12 league games and 3.8 in all of their regular-season games.
“We pitch well and we play good defense,” Holley said. “That will keep you in a lot of games.”
The Diablos’ top two starting pitchers are senior left-hander Aiden Chapuis and junior right-hander Caleb Tucker.
Chapuis has a 1.26 ERA with 55 strikeouts and 22 walks in 50 innings. Opposing batters are hitting .181 against him.
“Aiden’s fastball goes 87, 88 (miles per hour) and can get it up to 91,” Holley said. “He throws three pitches for strikes.”
One of Chapuis’ best starts came in a mid-March 2-1 loss to Ganesha. Plenty of MLB scouts were there to watch Ganesha’s LSU-committed lefty Logan Schmidt. Holley said Chapuis matched Schmidt “pitch for pitch” for seven innings.
Chapuis also plays in the outfield and lately has batted fourth in the order.
Tucker has a 1.53 ERA with 32 strikeouts and 11 walks in 46⅔ innings. Opposing teams are batting .221 against him.
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“Caleb has really awesome control,” Holley said. “He doesn’t have overpowering (pitches), but he can locate his fastball to any quadrant and he throws his curve at will for strikes.”
Senior lefty Wyatt Dunlap leads the relief corps on the pitching staff.
“Our pitching’s been phenomenal,” Chapuis said. “I might be biased about that because I’m a pitcher. But I’ve got to say a lot of that is because of how good our defense is. Sure, we make some errors but we’re able to shake it off and then make the plays.”
Jacob Ramirez has a team-high 11 RBIs. Logan Marsee has team highs of 23 hits and a .300 batting average. He is the only above-.299 hitter for Mission Viejo that has a team batting average of .229.
Anyone who follows Southern California high school baseball knows that .300-plus averages are plentiful among the better teams.
“I’ve been constantly telling our guys after games, ‘Hey, we’ve got help out our pitchers a little bit,’” Holley said.
Former Angels and Rangers manager Ron Washington did not like hearing the term “small ball” because to him “small ball” is real baseball.
“I couldn’t agree more with that statement,” Holley said.
“Our coaching staff says if we get a guy on first base, even if it’s our designated hitter batting No. 3 in the order, he’s going to bunt,” Holley said. “And I’ve got to give our boys credit because they’ve bought in to that. We’re not hearing, ‘I’m the No. 3 hitter, why am I bunting?’”
Mission Viejo last season finished 13-15 overall and 5-7 in league, lost five of its final seven games and missed the playoffs.
Chapuis said the Diablos were determined to make it back to the playoffs this season.
“From the beginning of this season, we wanted to make a name for ourselves,” Chapuis said. “We came in with a big chip on our shoulders because we had a bad year last year. We wanted to prove something this year.”
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So far, so very good.