by Zack Smolen
Happy bleated holidays Black Bears fans! Zack Smolen back with you for another edition of the blog celebrating our favorite ball club in the Pacific Northwest. Though the season of giving is now over, Cowlitz fans are being treated to gifts nearly everyday with the signing of top-tier players getting ready to head out to Longview this
summer.
There is one roster move in particular that I’d like to trumpet — the return of one of my favorite pitchers of 2021. If you haven’t guessed by my terrible set-up, the young man I’m referring to is the one and only Myles Davis. The Cal St. Bakersfield right-hander was one of the anchors of the Black Bears’ dominant 2021 rotation.
Though he made just six starts for the squad, Davis made a mammoth impact on Cowlitz, going 2-2 with a 3.44 ERA and 36 strikeouts in 31.1 innings. Additionally, he allowed one or fewer runs in half of his appearances, including perhaps one of the most memorable games of the entire season.
Just one evening after teammate Kelly Austin struck out nine batters through eight scoreless frame, Davis did one better, striking out a dozen Yakima Valley Pippins while taking a perfect game into the seventh inning and a no-hitter into the eighth. What more? It was his final start of the season! While there were plenty of dazzling Black Bears performances in 2021, Davis’ start was the only one where I saw a pitcher get the entirety of David Story Field on its feet for an ovation. To relive all of the action, you can watch his thrilling outing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz1kOM2JWjI.
Davis isn’t the only Cal St. Bakersfield Roadrunner that’ll be donning the green, orange, and black this summer. He will be joined by southpaw Marcelo Sardana, and switch-hitting power bat Andrew Allanson. Both can be expected to contribute mightily to the team’s success based on past performances, with Sardana earning Freshman All-American honors in 2020 and Allanson hitting .370 with seven home runs and 38 RBI in 34 games last summer.
As the off-season continues, we plan to bring you more player profiles and trips down memory lane every month as we do our part to keep our Black Bears family together while we wait for our favorite time of year.
Thank you so much for reading, and we will see you again soon!
-Stay Frosty