The Bakersfield College baseball team's inability to hit with runners on base and an uncharacteristically poor outing by the team's pitching staff caused the Renegades to lose 7-4 to Los Angeles Valley College Thursday afternoon at Gerry Collis Field.

Three BC pitchers combined to allow 15 hits while issuing seven walks and hitting one batter in the Renegades third straight loss.

The BC offense had 11 hits and drew six walks but left 11 runners on base.

"We didn't pitch well and offensively we left a small village of runners on base," BC coach Tim Painton said. "LA Valley did a very job of picking guys up when they had guys in scoring position. We stranded almost every guy we had in scoring position. We had opportunities to score almost every inning."

Patrick Reynier went 3 for 5 with two runs scored and Konner Dodge and Cale Hewes smacked a pair of hits each for the Renegades, who led 2-0 after the first inning.

Ahead 3-2, BC (8-16, 4-4 WSC) allowed the Monarchs (3-22, 2-6 WSC) to score three runs in the fifth take the lead for good.

An inning earlier the Renegades threatened to break the game open when they loaded the vases with no outs. However, Brock Hallum lined into a triple play and the rally was short circuited without BC plating any runs.

Renegades' starting pitcher Chris Diaz (2-3) was saddled with the loss after giving up five runs on eight hits and four walks in five innings of work.

"We haven't seen that (type of performance) out of him," Painton said. "Very uncharacteristic. He didn't locate very well today. Didn't have command of anything."

Game 2 of the three-game series between BC and LA Valley is in Van Nuys on Saturday, starting at 1 p.m.