Cal Poly to Host San Jose State for Final Midweek Game Tuesday Night
5/4/2015 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
WEEKLY NOTES: CAL POLY | SAN JOSE STATE | BIG WEST
AUDIO STREAM | VIDEO STREAM | LIVE STATS
CAL POLY VS. CSUN SERIES VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — Cal Poly (21-23, 9-6 Big West), which maintained its fourth-place standing in the Big West by winning two of three games at home against CSUN last weekend, plays its final midweek game of the 2015 season Tuesday night, hosting San Jose State (12-36, 5-19 Mountain West) at Baggett Stadium (cap.: 2,800).
First pitch is set for 6 p.m. and the game will be aired live on ESPN Radio 1280 with Tom Barket providing the play-by-play. Links for live stats as well as audio and video streams are available on the baseball schedule page at www.GoPoly.com.
Cal Poly returned 19 lettermen, including six position starters and seven pitchers (three of the four starters), off the 2014 squad which posted a school-record 47 victories, claimed its first Big West title and earned its third NCAA regional appearance in the last six years, hosting a regional for the first time.
And the Mustangs carried a national ranking as high as No. 13 into its opening series at Baylor, but the Mustangs were swept by the Bears as well as Grand Canyon the following week. Cal Poly is 20-17 since the 1-6 start and is two games behind tri-leaders UC Irvine, Cal State Fullerton and UC Santa Barbara in the Big West standings.
Cal Poly owns series wins over Pacific, Oregon State, Hawaii, Long Beach State and CSUN and is 11-5 since falling eight games below the .500 mark April 4. Last weekend at Baggett Stadium, the Mustangs beat the Matadors 6-2 and 7-1 before losing to CSUN for the first time in nine games, 6-4, in Sunday's finale. Trailing 6-0, Cal Poly scored four times in the seventh inning, three on Zack Zehner's home run, but left the bases loaded in the ninth.
San Jose State was 7-10 on March 13 after winning its series opener at UC Irvine, but has won just five of 31 games since. The Spartans have endured a pair of eight-game losing streaks as well as a six-game skid. Last weekend, San Jose State lost two of three at home against Fresno State, winning the middle game 7-3 sandwiched by 4-0 and 3-0 shutouts. The lone series won by the Spartans this season was a four-game set at home against Northern Colorado, three games to one, in late February.
Cal Poly's 2015 roster is led by junior second baseman Mark Mathias, the 2014 Big West Field Player of the Year with a .386 batting average who has earned numerous preseason All-America honors. Mathias underwent labrum surgery on his right shoulder Dec. 2 and returned to the lineup in the third week of the season as a designated hitter, going 2-for-4 with a double, one RBI and three runs scored against CSU Bakersfield on Feb. 24. Hitting .372 through 37 games with hits in each of his first 11 games as well as his last 14 contests, Mathias started at second base for the first time five weeks ago at Pepperdine. He is hitting .459 (34 of 74) over his last 19 games to lift his average 70 points.
Junior Peter Van Gansen returned to anchor the middle infield at shortstop while junior Brian Mundell, Cal Poly's designated hitter the last two years, took over at first base this spring. Senior Jordan Ellis returned for another season in center field while senior Zack Zehner, drafted in the seventh round by Toronto last June, moved from left field to right field this spring to replace Torres.
Mundell is now Cal Poly's designated hitter while Zehner is back in left field.
Cal Poly's pitching staff is led by junior Casey Bloomquist (12-2, 1.56 ERA a year ago), another preseason All-American, along with sophomores Justin Calomeni (8-2, 3.68 ERA) and Slater Lee (3-2, 6.20 ERA). All are right-handers. Replacing Reilly as the Mustangs' closer are senior southpaw Taylor Chris (4-1, 1.61 ERA, 5 saves), who allowed just one earned run in 27 Big West innings a year ago, and senior right-hander Danny Zandona (4-0, 3.49 ERA).
San Jose State returned 16 players, including four position starters and six pitchers, off a team which finished 19-38 a year ago and seventh in the Mountain West Conference at 10-20. Topping the list of returning veterans are outfielder Brett Bautista (.313, 17 RBI in 2014), outfielder Andre Mercurio (.280, 13 RBI) and infielder Alec de Watteville (.245, 21 RBI). The pitching staff is led by right-hander Kalei Contrades (5-2, 2.50 ERA in 2014), southpaw Jonathan Hernandez (0-7, 5.32 ERA) and righty Logan Handzlik (2-3, 5.92 ERA). Closer is Myles Richard (2-4, 4.82 ERA, five saves) also returns.
Coached by Dave Nakama (third year, 48-115, Willamette '84), San Jose State has a .238 team batting average through 48 games, led by Bautista (.282, eight doubles, 17 RBI), Mercurio (.272, 12 doubles, 22 RBI) and second baseman/outfielder Dillan Smith (.250, 12 RBI). The Spartans have stolen 31 of 54 bases, sport a 6.50 staff ERA and have compiled a .965 fielding percentage with 62 errors in 48 games.
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 and are now members of the Mountain West Conference. The Spartans' lone College World Series appearance was in 2000.
Nakama was associate head coach at Washington from 2010-12 before he was hired as head coach at San Jose State in September 2012. He also served as an assistant at Stanford from 1997-98 and 2002-09. Nakama was head coach at Mission College in San Jose from 1992-96 as well as at San Francisco State from 1999-2001; he was an infielder at Willamette and began his coaching career at Northern Colorado in 1984; he also has worked at Iowa, Yavapai College and DeAnza College.
Cal Poly and San Jose State have played 91 baseball games against each other since the series began in 1947. The Spartans hold a 48-42-1 advantage after their March 10 win over the Mustangs. Cal Poly and San Jose State resumed the series in 2013 after a three-year hiatus and Cal Poly had won four straight games against the Spartans prior to the March 10 matchup.
Cal Poly is 19-22-1 against San Jose State since the Mustangs moved to Division I prior to the 1995 season. Larry Lee is 12-6-1 against San Jose State while Nakama is 1-4 against Cal Poly.
San Jose State will start right-hander Carter Johnson (0-2, 7.36 ERA) on Tuesday while Cal Poly will counter with freshman right-hander Jarred Zill (2-1, 3.86 ERA), who will be making his fifth straight midweek start. He also was the starter in Cal Poly's 5-2 loss to the Spartans on March 10 in Municipal Stadium, though all four runs he gave up were unearned.
Mathias (pictured at left) went 6-for-13 in the CSUN series with a triple and two RBI while Zehner and senior center fielder Jordan Ellis each produced five hits. Sophomore Brett Barbier and junior Peter Van Gansen both had four hits in the series. As a team, Cal Poly is hitting .298 over its last 23 games since losing to Dartmouth on March 23.
Van Gansen is second on the team behind Mathias in hitting, sporting a .322 mark with 10 doubles, two triples, a pair of three-run home runs (his first two homers as a Mustang) and 26 RBI. Van Gansen has reached base safely in 41 of Cal Poly's 44 games and has produced 11- and eight-game hitting streaks.
Zehner has a .299 average and leads the team with seven home runs and 38 RBI while Ellis is hitting .298 with seven doubles, five triples and 18 RBI. Mundell currently sports a .274 mark with nine doubles, five home runs and 26 RBI while catcher Brett Barbier is hitting .273 with five doubles, four triples, three home runs and 25 RBI.
Cal Poly was 29-5 at home last season and has won 109 of its last 144 home games for a winning percentage of 75.6 percent. At 17-3 on March 16, 2014, Cal Poly posted the program's second-best 20-game start in its 110-year history. The 1997 Mustangs opened the year 18-2. Last year's squad also produced the school's best-ever 30-game start at 25-5, exceeding the 23-7 start by the 2009 team, 22-8 opening by the 2013 squad and 21-9 start of the 1997 club.
Cal Poly has produced 12 winning seasons since 2000. The Mustangs won 32 of 43 series, including 18 sweeps, over the last three years and have the third-most victories over the last three seasons in the West Region -- 123 -- exceeded only by Oregon (138) and Oregon State (137). Last year's squad was the fourth in Cal Poly history to win 40 or more games, posting a 47-12 mark. The 1977 and 1992 Mustang squads each won 41 games while the 2013 team finished 40-19.
Ranked No. 13 in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper's preseason poll, No. 23 by the NCBWA and No. 24 by USA Today/ESPN in this year's preseason polls, Cal Poly won 13 of 14 series of three games or more a year ago, including seven sweeps, split two games in a rain-shortened series at USC and won nine of its 10 midweek games, shutting out Santa Clara twice.
Cal Poly was ranked throughout the 2014 season, reaching the top 20 in all five major Division I polls after splitting a doubleheader at USC on March 2, moving into the top 10 following its 3-1 series win over Cal on March 24 and attaining a program-first No. 1 ranking by Collegiate Baseball Newspaper on April 21 after its sweep of Cal State Fullerton. The Mustangs finished Nos. 18-20 in the five polls with their 47-12 mark.
The Mustangs had a 12-game winning streak -- longest in a single season in Cal Poly history -- snapped in the Long Beach State series. A 14-game winning streak was compiled by the 2012 (last seven games of season) and 2013 (first seven games) squads at Cal Poly. The Mustangs were 6-3 against the Pac-12, 3-0 against the Big 12, 5-3 against the West Coast, 7-1 against the WAC and 2-0 versus the Mountain West last season.
Lee (417-307-2), in his 13th season with the Mustangs, has guided Cal Poly to 10 finishes in the upper half of the Big West standings in the last 12 years. He earned his 400th win March 7 at Pacific and surpassed Berdy Harr (297-249-6 from 1973-83) as Cal Poly's winningest head baseball coach during the Pacific series in 2011.
Cal Poly hits the road for a weekend Big West Conference series at UC Irvine. Friday's game begins at 6:30 p.m., with Saturday's 7 p.m. contest on Prime Ticket and Sunday's finale set for a 1 p.m. start on ESPN3.
