Why can’t the Star-News side of town hit for power like the East side?

nickkaye“In general, on our side of the Valley I don’t think we have the same size guys that the east side of the Valley has in terms of natural build,” Monrovia head coach Brad Blackmore said. “You get out in the Inland Empire and you just see some big dudes. To make the answer real simple, we’re not growing those guys at Monrovia or Alhambra.
“You can get them as strong as you can in the weight room, but you can’t replace natural height. You just can’t. You can offset it by asking how many D-1 college pitchers have come out of this area in the past few years, but where are the D-1 hitters? All of the guys on our side of the Valley who have been monsters the past couple years have all been pitchers.”

Gladstone’s Aldo Perez leads the state with nine home runs. Glendora’s Nick Kaye (pictured above) has 4 .. But what about the West side? There’s a power outage in one section of the San Gabriel Valley.
Yes, your lights still work if you’re in the West San Gabriel Valley. But no, your favorite local high school baseball team can’t hit the ball over the fence with any regularity.
Yep, the most popular moment in baseball, the one chicks dig, has almost vanished from these parts. In fact, home runs are so rare among WSGV baseball teams that a white smoke signal should go out whenever one happens.
The funny thing is, the issue seems to be only effecting teams playing in the east of Glendale but west of the 605 Freeway. Go east of the 605 and there’s a sophomore masher at Gladstone named Aldo Perez, who leads the entire state in home runs with nine.
A sophomore!
Further down from Perez in the standings is Glendora’s Nick Kaye with four. As for the WSGV area, there’s three players — Monrovia’s Eric Herrera and Pasadena’s Niko Lopez and Tyler Bradley — tied with two apiece.

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