Cal Poly to Host Pepperdine in Final Big West Tuneup on Tuesday Night
3/26/2013 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
WEEKLY NOTES: CAL POLY | PEPPERDINE | BIG WEST
MUSTANGS RANKED IN TOP 25 IN ALL FIVE MAJOR POLLS
LIVE STATS | AUDIO | VIDEO
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- No. 21 Cal Poly (17-5, 0-0 Big West), which sprinted to 7-0 and 13-1 starts in the first four weeks of the 2013 baseball season and won a non-conference series against Central Coast rival UC Santa Barbara over the weekend, entertains defending West Coast Conference co-champion Pepperdine (13-9, 0-0 West Coast) for a single game Tuesday night.
Cal Poly's final Big West Conference tuneup begins at 6 p.m. in Baggett Stadium (1,734) and the game will be aired live on ESPN Radio 1280 with Tom Barket calling the play-by-play. The contest 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, then after their first loss, a 2-1 decision at Washington, put together a six-game winning streak before falling to Kansas State 10-4 in the series finale at Manhattan, Kansas. Cal Poly split four games the following week against San Jose State and Notre Dame before capturing its series against UC Santa Barbara over the weekend as senior second baseman Denver Chavez and sophomore right fielder Nick Torres each collected seven hits and freshman designated hitter Brian Mundell homered twice and knocked in five runs.
Pepperdine is 13-9 on the year with a five-game winning streak after completing a West Coast Conference series sweep against Santa Clara on Sunday with a 19-4 victory in Malibu. The Waves also earned 4-3 and 7-5 wins over the Broncos.
Cal Poly hit .321 in the season-opening 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 against Holy Cross and Kansas State. The Mustangs hit .310 the following week against San Jose State and Notre Dame, then produced a .358 mark in winning their series against UC Santa Barbara.
Chavez went 7-for-11 against the Gauchos with two doubles while Torres extended his hitting streak to 16 games with a 7-for-12 series, including two doubles, his fifth home run of the year and four RBI. Mundell added five hits, scored four times and knocked in five runs. He has seven home runs on the year (all in the last 10 games), second only to Matt Jensen (nine) among freshmen in Cal Poly's 19-year Division I history. Chavez sports a .395 batting average while Mundell is hitting .358 and Torres .355.
The Mustang starting rotation of senior right-hander Joey Wagman (5-1, 2.70 ERA), sophomore southpaw Matt Imhof (2-0, 1.41 ERA) and sophomore righty Bryan Granger (4-2, 4.02 ERA) has allowed just 32 earned runs in 22 games while relievers Reed Reilly, Michael Holback, Chase Johnson and Taylor Chris have combined for eight saves in the first six weeks of the season.
Lee earned his 300th win last May 5 in a 12-7 decision at UC Davis. Lee (324-257-2) 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.
Pepperdine, coached by Steve Rodriguez (10th season, 312-238, Pepperdine '01), returned 21 lettermen, including five position starters and seven pitchers (three starters), off a team which went 36-23 a year ago, finished tied for first in the West Coast Conference at 16-8 and went 2-2 in the Stanford Regional, losing to Stanford by 5-4 and 8-7 scores.
The Waves opened the year by sweeping a four-game home series against Western Michigan, then lost nine of their next 13 games before putting together their current five-game winning streak with two victories against Loyola Marymount and three against Santa Clara last weekend. Pepperdine won a series against Texas A&M but lost series against Oklahoma and Seton Hall.
Top hitters for the Waves are catcher Kolten Yamaguchi (.400, seven RBI), third baseman Austin Davidson (.341, nine doubles, 10 RBI), catcher Nate Johnson (.325, seven doubles, six RBI) and outfielder Ranny Lowe (.307, 12 RBI). The Pepperdine pitching staff is paced by right-handers Scott Frazier (2-3, 4.35 ERA) and Corey Miller (4-2, 2.97 ERA) and southpaw Aaron Brown (1-1, 5.89 ERA) ... righty Michael Swanner (0-0, 1.86 ERA, four saves) is the closer.
Junior southpaw Matt Maurer (0-1, 3.86 ERA) will start Tuesday for the Waves, to be opposed by Mustang senior right-hander Kyle Brueggemann (pictured above) (1-0, 5.40 ERA).
Pepperdine is hitting .266 as a team with 58 doubles, no triples and 12 home runs, while the pitching staff has compiled a 3.30 earned run average. The Waves have committed 24 errors in 22 games for a .972 fielding percentage.
Pepperdine has appeared in 26 NCAA regionals, the last time in 2012, and has made two College World Series appearances, capturing the national title in 1992.
Cal Poly and Pepperdine have met 50 times in baseball since the series began in 1947. The Waves hold a 29-21 advantage, beating the Mustangs twice in 2011 by scores of 5-3 and 7-4 in 11 innings. Jimmy Allen's two-out home run in the 10th inning last May lifted Cal Poly to a 2-1 victory in Baggett Stadium.
Cal Poly, which dropped one spot to No. 21 in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll this week and also is ranked No. 23 in the Perfect Game and Baseball America polls and No. 25 in both the USA Today coaches and National College Baseball Writers Association polls, 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 Mustangs played 10 of their first 15 games on the road and currently are in a stretch of playing 10 of 11 in Baggett Stadium.
This weekend, Cal Poly opens Big West Conference play at home against UC Davis on Thursday through Saturday. First pitch Thursday and Friday will be at 6 p.m., with Saturday's series finale to start at 1 o'clock.
