Cal Poly Baseball to Host San Jose State for Single Game Tuesday Night
3/11/2013 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
WEEKLY NOTES: CAL POLY | BIG WEST | SAN JOSE STATE
CAL POLY INCHES TO NO. 20 IN COLLEGIATE BASEBALL POLL
LIVE STATS | AUDIO | VIDEO
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- No. 20 Cal Poly (13-2, 0-0 Big West), which has jumped to 7-0 and 13-1 starts in the first four weeks of the 2013 baseball season, entertains San Jose State (4-11, 0-0 WAC) for a single non-conference game Tuesday night in Baggett Stadium (1,734).
First pitch is set for 6 p.m. and the game will be aired live on ESPN Radio 1280 with Tom Barket calling the play-by-play. The game also will be available via audio and video streams as well as live stats at GoPoly.com.
Cal Poly, 36-20 a year ago and winner of 14 of its final 17 games, 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, finished one game behind champion Cal State Fullerton in the Big West and ended atop the conference in most key offensive categories, including average, runs, hits, doubles, home runs and RBI.
Under 11th-year head coach Larry Lee, the Mustangs won their first seven games of the 2013 season against San Francisco, Santa Clara and Seattle, then after a 2-1 loss at Washington on March 1, put together a six-game winning streak against the Huskies, Holy Cross and Kansas State before falling to the Wildcats 10-4 in the series finale Saturday.
San Jose State won two of three games against Pacific to open the season, but lost nine straight before defeating Fresno State 10-3 last Tuesday; San Jose State lost two of three games to Santa Clara over the weekend.
Cal Poly hit .321 in the quartet of Bay Area games, but the mark fell to .234 in the Seattle series and .210 in the Washington series before hitting .307 in winning four of five games last week against Holy Cross and Kansas State.
Junior third baseman Jimmy Allen provided a major portion of the offensive spark for the Mustangs last week, going 10-for-22 with two doubles, a home run, six runs scored and five RBI. He has produced four straight multiple-hit games and has lifted his batting average to .333. Sophomore right fielder Nick Torres was 8-for-22 last week with two doubles and five RBI while senior second baseman Denver Chavez and junior center fielder David Armendariz both had six hits in five games.
The Mustang starting rotation of senior right-hander Joey Wagman (3-1, 3.38 ERA), sophomore southpaw Matt Imhof (2-0, 1.40 ERA) and sophomore righty Bryan Granger (3-1, 3.04 ERA) has allowed just 21 earned runs in 15 games while relievers Reed Reilly, Michael Holback, Chase Johnson and Taylor Chris have combined for eight saves in the first four weeks of the season.
Lee earned his 300th win last May 5 in a 12-7 decision at UC Davis. Lee (318-254-2) 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).
Lee has guided Cal Poly to a quartet of 3-0 starts with season-opening series sweeps over San Diego in 2005, Fresno State in 2006, Oklahoma State in 2012 and San Francisco this year. The Mustangs won their first seven games for the first time since 1981. The 1954 and 1974 Mustangs started 8-0 and the school record start to a season was 10-0 by the 1951 team coached by Robert Mott.
San Jose State, coached by Dave Nakama (first season, 4-11, Willamette '84), returns 14 lettermen, including seven position starters and eight pitchers, off a team which went 22-29 a year ago and finished seventh in the Western Athletic Conference at 5-13.
Top hitters for the Spartans after 15 games are left fielder Tim Quiery (.365, eight RBI, six steals), first baseman Matt Carroll (.343, seven RBI) and second baseman Jacob Valdez (.308, 11 RBI). The Spartans' pitching staff is paced by right-hander D.J. Slaton (0-3, 2.88 ERA) and southpaws David Wayne Russo (2-2, 4.64 ERA) and Johnny Melero (0-1, 7.04 ERA). Senior right-hander Jason Kafka (1-0, 6.75 ERA) is expected to start against Cal Poly.
San Jose State is hitting .263 as a team with 19 doubles, four triples and no home runs, while the pitching staff has surrendered just 5.83 earned runs per game. The Spartans have committed just nine errors in 15 games for a .984 fielding percentage.
San Jose State has made four NCAA appearances, the last time in 2002 at the Stanford Regional. The Spartans earned Western Athletic Conference regular-season titles in 2000 and 2009. San Jose State's lone College World Series appearance was in 2000.
Cal Poly and San Jose State have played 86 baseball games against each other since the series began in 1947. The Spartans hold a 47-38-1 advantage. Last time the two teams met was in 2009 when Cal Poly won a pair of midweek games. Cal Poly is 15-21-1 against San Jose State since the Mustangs moved to Division I prior to the 1995 season.
Cal Poly, which climbed one position to No. 20 in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll this week and also is ranked No. 23 in the USA Today coaches poll and No. 22 in the National College Baseball Writers Association poll, last year was ranked No. 22 by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper after its 7-1 start and No. 27 after sweeping UC Irvine in early April.
Cal Poly has won at least 30 games eight times in the last 13 seasons, in 2012 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 Kansas State series ended a run of eight games in 10 days for Cal Poly. The Mustangs played 10 of their first 15 games on the road and will play 10 of 11 in Baggett Stadium beginning with the San Jose State contest. The Spartans host the Mustangs on May 7.
This weekend, Cal Poly hosts Notre Dame for a three-game series. The Thursday and Friday contests start at 6 p.m., with the series finale Saturday to begin at noon.
