Burbank Baseball Beats Glendale 16-11 in Pacific League Slugfest

Burbank High’s baseball team ended a rough stretch Tuesday with a 16-11 road win over Glendale in a Pacific League game that featured more offense than most fans see in a doubleheader.

The final line tells the story: 27 combined runs, 23 hits, 14 walks. A slugfest.

The victory snapped a five-game losing streak for the Bulldogs, who came into Glendale’s yard and swung their way out of trouble. Head coach Bob Hart said he liked what he saw, mostly. “I thought we played well early and then let up,” Hart said. “We struggled on the hill, but we played pretty good defense.”

Burbank wasted no time.

Senior Ryland Le Clair slapped a two-run single to right field in the first inning with seven batters coming to the plate. Sophomore Mason Schwartz added an RBI single up the middle, and just like that the Bulldogs led 3-0 before Glendale could settle in. The Nitros trimmed it to 3-1 on a sacrifice fly from Hunter Knowles, but Burbank wasn’t finished building.

The third inning is where this game got put away. Six runs, five hits, and the big blow was a three-run triple from senior Julian Recinos to right center. Sophomore Luka Kuiper added an RBI single to center. Senior Tomas Angel rifled a run-scoring single to right. Junior Ezekiel Canto chipped in with an RBI infield hit. Senior Andru Machado led off the inning with a single to center and came around to score. Hart made a point to single out Recinos after the game. “Julian Recinos had two triples and those stood out to me,” he said.

Recinos finished with two triples and three RBIs. Not a bad afternoon.

Angel matched him, collecting three hits including a triple and driving in three runs. Schwartz went 3-for-3 with singles. The Bulldogs, sitting at 2-9-1 overall and 2-4-1 in league play, showed they can put runs on the board when they get the right approach at the plate.

Glendale head coach John Botelho saw it coming. “Burbank came to swing the bat today,” Botelho said. “Coach Hart always has his kids ready to go but they had the right approach at the plate today. They hit the ball hard and good things happened for them.”

Burbank pushed the lead to 10-4 in the fourth when Kuiper singled up the middle and eventually scored on a wild pitch. Recinos added another one-out triple to right in the fifth and crossed home on another wild pitch. The Bulldogs sent ten batters to the plate in the sixth and scored five, with sophomore Kris Haddad contributing a run-tallying grounder and Angel delivering a two-run triple. Sophomore Geo Grair singled in the seventh and scored to close out the Burbank offensive effort.

The Nitros weren’t dead at any point. That’s what made this game messy.

Glendale’s Maniel Manuelian went single and a double with four RBIs. Allen Corwin added a two-run single for the Nitros, who fall to 2-14 on the year and 0-7 in Pacific League play. It’s been a hard spring for Glendale baseball.

The Pacific League features some of the stronger programs in the Southern Section of the California Interscholastic Federation, and a win on the road in league play carries real weight for Burbank’s postseason math, slim as the margin might be at this stage of the season.

Hart has been coaching at Burbank long enough to know the difference between a sloppy win and a meaningful one. Tuesday felt like both. The pitching gave up 11 runs. But the bats showed up, the defense held, and a losing streak that had stretched across five games is done.

Reporting from MyBurbank contributed to this story.

The two teams aren’t done. Burbank hosts Glendale on Friday, giving the Bulldogs a chance to build on Tuesday’s momentum in front of their own crowd. Hart’s team needed to feel what winning looks like again. Now they get to play with that.