Cal Poly to Open 2013 Baseball Season With Four Games in Bay Area
2/14/2013 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
WEEKLY NOTES: CAL POLY | SAN FRANCISCO | BIG WEST
LIVE STATS ||| AUDIO: FRIDAY | SATURDAY | SUNDAY
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Cal Poly, which finished 36-20 a year ago, winning its final seven games, nine of 10 and 14 of 17, hopes to continue the momentum nearly nine months later as the Mustangs open the 2013 baseball campaign this weekend with a three-game non-conference series at San Francisco.
Friday's game starts at 2 p.m., followed by 1 o'clock contests Saturday and Sunday at Benedetti Diamond (1,000). All three games of the series will be aired live on ESPN Radio 1280 with Eric Burdick providing the play-by-play. An audio stream as well as live stats will be available at www.gopoly.com.
Cal Poly also plays Monday at Santa Clara, with first pitch set for 3 p.m.
Cal Poly returns 23 letter winners, including seven position starters and 11 pitchers (four starters), off its 2012 squad which swept six series, won nine of 14 weekend series and finished atop the Big West in most key offensive categories, including average, runs, hits, doubles, home runs and RBI. The Mustangs must replace 10-game winner Kyle Anderson, Big West Player of the Year Mitch Haniger and shortstop Mike Miller, the team's leading hitter with a .354 average.
Joey Wagman will be Cal Poly's Friday night starter for the second straight year while sophomore southpaw Matt Imhof (four starts in 2012) takes over as the Saturday starter. Sophomore Bryan Granger (eight starts in 2012) will fill the Sunday slot, with senior Kyle Brueggemann (13 starts in 2012) starting Monday at Santa Clara.
Cal Poly jumped to 7-1 and 20-10 starts in a year ago with series sweeps against Oklahoma State (3-0), Loyola Marymount (4-0) and UC Irvine (3-0) as well as series wins over Washington (2-1) and San Diego State (3-1). The Mustangs struggled through March and April before putting together their late-season surge in May.
Topping the list of returnees are junior third baseman Jimmy Allen (pictured above) (.345, 44 RBI, nine steals in 2012), junior outfielder David Armendariz (.312, 36 RBI, 13 steals) and junior first baseman Tim Wise (.308, 28 RBI, 11 steals). The Mustangs return 68 percent of their hits and 76 percent of their innings from a year ago.
"Pitching will be the key to our success this season," said 11th-year Mustang head coach Larry Lee. "It is the biggest unknown at this time.
"The onus of our season in my mind is how well our Nos. 3 and 4 starters perform, combined with our bullpen. If we can get good starts on Sundays and Tuesdays, it will give us the best possible chance to be successful in the bullpen, which will be very important to our success.
"We return quite a bit of our offensive attack from last year, but one of our biggest challenges is to replace both Miller and Haniger, who were vital components of our offense," Lee added.
"As long as our returners continue to develop as hitters and allow our younger players to develop as the season progresses, we have a chance to be a very solid team. The majority of our offensive players have the capability of producing solid numbers."
Lee earned his 300th win as head coach of the Mustangs last May 5 in a 12-7 decision at UC Davis. Lee (309-253-2) surpassed Berdy Harr (297-249-6 from 1973-83) as Cal Poly's winningest head baseball coach during the Pacific series a week earlier. Steve McFarland was 290-257 in 10 seasons (1984-93) at the helm of the Mustangs while Ritch Price was 217-228-1 in Cal Poly's first eight years of play in Division I (1995-2002).
San Francisco, coached by Nino Giarratano (15th season, 397-400-1, William Jewell '85), returns 18 lettermen, including four position starters and eight pitchers, off a team which went 29-30 a year ago and finished tied for third in the West Coast Conference at 14-10. The Dons have made two appearances in the NCAA regionals -- 2006 and 2011 -- posting a 2-4 postseason record, and have won two West Coast Conference titles (also 2006 and 2011).
Top returnees for USF are senior outfielder Justin Maffei (.315, four homers, 24 steals in 2012), senior infielder Jason Mahood (.284, 28 RBI in 2012) and sophomore first baseman/outfielder Brendan Hendricks (.311, 12 RBI in 2012). The Dons' pitching staff is paced by right-handers Abe Bobb (8-4, 2.18 ERA in 2012) and Alex Balog (4-4, 3.43 ERA), both juniors.
Cal Poly and San Francisco have met 39 times on the baseball field since the series began in 1950. The Mustangs hold a 25-14 advantage, winning a single game 11-9 in the Aztec Invitational hosted by San Diego State a year ago at Tony Gwynn Stadium. The last time the two teams played a three-game series was in 2010 at Baggett Stadium, with the Dons winning two of three. Cal Poly is 13-10 against San Francisco since the Mustangs moved to Division I prior to the 1995 season.
Cal Poly was ranked No. 22 by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper after its 7-1 start and No. 27 after sweeping UC Irvine in early April. The Mustangs were 17-1 on Saturday, 6-1 in shutouts, 34-1 when leading after eight innings, 28-5 when outhitting their foes and 22-5 when making fewer errors than the opposition in 2012 en route to a second-place Big West finish, just one game behind Cal State Fullerton.
Cal Poly made just 46 errors in 56 games, good for 15th in the country out of 297 teams, its 3.48 staff ERA was a school Division I record, surpassing the 2011 team's mark of 3.60. At the plate, the Mustangs finished with a .297 average, hitting .337 in their final 16 games. The school-record .978 field percentage included 22 errorless games.
Cal Poly has won at least 30 games eight times in the last 13 seasons, posted its 10th winning season since 2000 and has finished in the upper half of the conference standings nine times in the last 11 years.
The Mustangs open the home portion of their 2013 schedule next week, hosting Seattle for a three-game series at Baggett Stadium. Games on Friday and Saturday start at 6 p.m., followed by a noon finale Sunday.
