Cal Poly Baseball to Open Four-Game Home Stand Tuesday Night
5/13/2013 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
WEEKLY NOTES: CAL POLY | CSU BAKERSFIELD | BIG WEST
FOLLOW FORMER MUSTANGS IN THE PROS (pdf)
AUDIO STREAM | VIDEO STREAM | LIVE STATS
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- No. 27 Cal Poly (33-16, 12-9 Big West), which sprinted to 7-0 and 13-1 starts in the first four weeks of the 2013 baseball season, battled through a sluggish second half of March and all of April (15-13) and split four games on the road last week, plays the first of its final four home games of the 2013 season Tuesday night, hosting CSU Bakersfield (34-18, 17-7 WAC) for a single non-conference game in Baggett Stadium (1,734).
First pitch is set for 6 p.m. 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, returned 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 (snapping a 14-game winning streak over two seasons), put together a six-game winning streak capped by a sweep of a doubleheader against Kansas State on March 8 in Manhattan, Kansas.
Cal Poly swept UC Davis to open Big West play seven weeks ago, but won just eight of its next 16 games before sweeping UC Riverside two weeks ago. Last week, the Mustangs extended their winning streak to four games with a 5-2 victory at San Jose State before dropping two of three games at UC Irvine over the weekend and falling into a tie for fourth place in the Big West with UC Santa Barbara.
Cal Poly, which reached the 20-win mark before the end of March for the first time since the NCAA's uniform start date was implemented in 2008, surpassed the 30-win mark and clinched its 11th winning season since 2000 with the UC Riverside sweep. The Mustangs are 17 games above the .500 mark, have posted a 12-5 mark in one-run games and enter the week with an RPI of 31, in contention for the school's second NCAA Division I regional playoff berth.
CSU Bakersfield is two games ahead of Texas-Arlington in the Western Athletic Conference with one three-game series to be played this weekend at San Jose State. The eight-team WAC tournament is scheduled for May 22-26 at QuickTrip Park in Grand Prairie, Texas.
Cal Poly has hit over the .300 mark in five of its 13 weekend series, including a .358 mark in the non-conference series against UC Santa Barbara eight weeks ago and .342 against UC Davis. The Mustangs, however, hit a season-low .172 in the UC Irvine series last weekend as their team batting average slipped to .275.
Senior second baseman Denver Chavez leads the Mustangs and is among the top five in the Big West with his .352 batting average. He also is among the conference leaders in hits (70), runs scored (44), on-base percentage (.420), doubles (12), steals (13) and total bases (86). Sophomore center fielder Jordan Ellis is hitting .342 and leads the team and Big West in triples with five.
Sophomore right fielder Nick Torres sports a .318 mark with six home runs and leads the team in RBI with 36 and the Big West with seven sacrifice flies while freshman designated hitter Brian Mundell has 35 RBI and nine home runs on the year, tying Matt Jensen among freshmen home run hitters in Cal Poly's 19-year Division I history. Junior third baseman Jimmy Allen is hitting .276 with 32 RBI while junior left fielder David Armendariz and freshman shortstop Peter Van Gansen both sport .273 averages.
Cal Poly's three starting outfielders -- Torres (18 games, fourth-longest in Cal Poly's Division I history), Ellis (13) and Armendariz (10) -- all had long hitting streaks snapped in recent weeks.
The Mustang starting rotation of senior right-hander Joey Wagman (10-3, 3.12 ERA), sophomore southpaw Matt Imhof (5-3, 2.46 ERA) and sophomore righty Bryan Granger (5-4, 5.37 ERA) has allowed just 88 earned runs in 49 games while relievers Reed Reilly, Michael Holback, Chase Johnson and Taylor Chris have combined for 16 saves. With his 14 saves, Reilly has tied the all-time single-season school record previously set by Mike Bille in 2005.
Lee earned his 300th win last May 5 in a 12-7 decision at UC Davis. Lee (342-269-2) 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.
CSU Bakersfield, coached by Bill Kernen (fifth season, 131-137, Redlands '70), returned 15 lettermen, including seven position starters and seven pitchers, off a team which went 25-30 a year ago. The Roadrunners were an independent a year ago and are in their first season in the Western Athletic Conference.
The Roadrunners sprinted to 10-4 and 16-6 starts with series wins over LIU-Brooklyn, UC Davis and Northern Colorado, then won just five of their next 12 games before getting back on the winning track with series wins over Texas-Arlington, Dallas Baptist, Louisiana Tech and Seattle, posting a 13-5 mark over the last six weeks.
Top hitters for the Roadrunners are shortstop Tyler Shryock (,366, 11 doubles, 22 RBI), second baseman Oscar Sanay (.344, 12 doubles, five triples, 40 RBI), third baseman Mylz Jones (.335, 11 doubles, 33 RBI), catcher Cael Brockmeyer (.332, four home runs, 47 RBI) and first baseman Dylan Christensen (.311, 36 RBI). The CSUB pitching staff is paced by right-hander Scott Brattvet (8-1, 2.70 ERA) and southpaws Jeff McKenzie (12-1, 1.76 ERA) and Jonathan Montoya (3-3, 3.99 ERA). The closers are right-hander Dylan Christensen (1-4, 2.74 ERA, five saves) and southpaw Taylor Aikenhead (5-2, 3.08 ERA, five saves).
Sophomore right-hander Hayden Carter (2-2, 4.12 ERA) will start on the mound for CSU Bakersfield, facing Cal Poly freshman right-hander Casey Bloomquist (4-1, 4.59 ERA).
The Roadrunners are hitting .297 as a team with 83 doubles, 20 triples and six home runs, while the pitching staff has compiled a 3.30 earned run average. The Roadrunners have committed 54 errors in 52 games for a .973 fielding percentage.
Cal Poly and CSU Bakersfield have met 15 times on the baseball field since the series began in 2009. The Mustangs hold a 10-5 advantage in the series, winning six of the first seven. Cal Poly beat CSU Bakersfield April 9, 5-2, as Bloomquist earned his first collegiate victory and Torres and Van Gansen each collected three hits and a pair of RBI.
Cal Poly, which dropped five positions to No. 27 in the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association poll, fell out of the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper and USA Today Coaches polls on Monday. Baseball America and Perfect Game dropped the Mustangs from their polls three weeks ago. Last year the Mustangs were ranked No. 22 by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper after their 7-1 start and No. 27 after sweeping UC Irvine in early April.
Cal Poly has won at least 30 games nine times in the last 14 seasons, has posted its 11th winning season since 2000 and has finished in the upper half of the conference standings nine times in the last 11 years.
Cal Poly hosts second-place Cal State Northridge for a three-game Big West Conference series Friday through Sunday. Friday's game begins at 6 p.m., with first pitch for both Saturday and Sunday at 1 o'clock.
