Had to have these two. Got 'em. George Castillo said he didn't have his best stuff for the first game of the DH against Arizona Western on Saturday.

"But it was enough" said hitting coach Jerry Hardin.

"But it was enough" agreed Castillo himself. Castillo threw a nice six innings striking out four and giving up only four hits and in the game you need, you go to Castillo because even his medium stuff is enough most of the time. Central won 4-2 on a single from red-hot Tim Hergert with two outs and bases jammed in the bottom of the sixth to give the Vaqueros the lead. You never know who it will be on this team.

Drama in the top of the 7th (DH first games are seven innings). In came Christian Botnick with a 4-2 lead and an ERA of .069 and the first two runners reached on a walk and single and with no outs, Caleb Henderson made a terrific scoop of a hard grounder to his right, fired to Josh Ethier at second who fired back to Henderson for a relieving double play. Bots got the next out on a weak infield pop-up to save another, his 6th, and finished the game with an ERA of .044.

In game two, Central scored right away on a line shot to center from Jaime Estrada and a rope to right from Tim Hergert, and Colby Hamilton lined one to left in the second scoring Cody Erickson who had blasted a short hopper to the left-center field fence.

Michael Lopez started game two and through six innings had given up two runs, but had walked none and struck out five.

"Lopez does a good job of changing his tempo and arm angles to keep hitters off balance" said head coach Anthony Gilich afterwards. It's a treat to watch because you never know what kind of pitch will emanate from that arm.

More dramatics in the bottom of the eighth in the second game, the Vaq's scored to tie the game at three, and Cooper Esmay bounced a two hopper through the left side with two out to score MJ Hubbs for the go-ahead run. Sam Myers "threw two big bullet innings" to close 'er out. The final was 4-3 for the Central sweep.

Cheers and encouragment from the bench for four and a half hours. The Vaqueros remain three games back for the fourth Division I play-off spot with nine games left. No need to mention the importance of each game from now on, but worth mentioning that Central is playing some very good baseball when it's needed the most.

Blade can be reached at bladestage@gmail.com