Category Archives: CAL LEAGUE NEWS

The California League got underway last week with three-game sets Thursday – Saturday. The Lake Elsinore Storm started the defense of their 2022 championship with a dominant three-game sweep of Visalia, outscoring the Rawhide 27-2. Modesto swept Stockton as well, racking up 30 runs over the three games.

Tonight we go back to the six-game series with Mondays off until Memorial Day, where the schedule gets tweaked a little bit for the holiday. Here’s tonight’s matchups:

RANCHO CUCAMONGA (2-1) at VISALIA (0-3)
LAKE ELSINORE (3-0) at INLAND EMPIRE (1-2)
STOCKTON (0-3) at FRESNO (2-1)
SAN JOSE (1-2) at MODESTO (3-0)

John Shoemaker will be the field manager for the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes for the third straight year as announced by the team. Shoemaker has been coaching in the Dodgers organization since 1981 and posted a record of 135-117 over the past two seasons at the helm for the Quakes.

Full staff:

Hitting Coach – Dylan Nasiatka
Pitching Coach – Ramon Troncoso
Pitching Coach – Sean Coyne
Bench/Hitting Coach – Ronny Paulino
Athletic Trainer – Akinori Maeda
Performance Coach – Taylor Miller
Video/Development Coach – Ben Castiglia

Pete Zamora has been named as manager of Lake Elsinore to head the 2023 coaching staff. Zamora served as pitching coach for the Storm in 2019 and held that same position with the San Antonio Missions last year.

The rest of the staff is as follow:

Pitching Coach – Thomas Eshelman
Bench Coach – Jhonaldo Pozo
Athletic Trainer – Josean Prieto
Strength Coach – Mark Spadavecchia
Performance Analyst – Charles King
Video Analyst – Kenny Kirkpatrick

The Stockton Ports announced their 2023 coaching staff, with Gregorio Petit heading the list as the club’s manager. Petit broke into the big leagues with Stockton’s parent club, the A’s, in 2008 and played parts of that season and 2009 with them. In 197 games over six seasons, the Venezuelan-born infielder played in 197 major league games.

Rounding out the Ports’ staff:

Kevin Kouzmanoff – Hitting Coach
Gabriel Ozuna – Pitching Coach
Ruben Escalara – Assistant Hitting Coach
Noah Huff – Athletic Trainer
Nathaniel Penaranda – Sports Performance Coach

The Fresno Grizzlies and the Lake Elsinore Storm finished off their division series and advanced to the California League championship series, which starts Sunday at 1PM in Lake Elsinore.

SAN JOSE – 3
FRESNO – 7
Fresno wins series 2-0
Box

INLAND EMPIRE – 8
LAKE ELSINORE – 10
Lake Elsinore wins series 2-0
Box

The playoffs start on Tuesday night with two best-of-3 series:

FRESNO at SAN JOSE
LAKE ELSINORE at INLAND EMPIRE

Per the playoff procedures, The four winners of each half will qualify for the playoffs and if one team wins both halves, then the team in that division with the next best record over the full season will qualify.

Fresno won the North divsion in both halves. San Jose had the next best record over the whole season so it’s them and Fresno to see who goes to the championship series. Lake Elsinore won the South in the first half and Inland Empire won it in the second half, setting up their series.