Tuesday, March 8
San Luis Obispo, CA
6 p.m.
vs
San José State
Cal Poly to Open Eight-Game Home Stand Tuesday Versus SJSU
3/7/2022 8:17:00 PM | Baseball
WEEKLY NOTES: CAL POLY | SAN JOSE STATE | BIG WEST
AUDIO STREAM | VIDEO STREAM | LIVE STATS | TICKETS
BROOKS LEE EARNS FOURTH BIG WEST PLAYER OF THE WEEK AWARD
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Cal Poly (5-6, 0-0 Big West), which split six games on the road against Missouri State and UNLV over the last two weekends, returns home to open an eight-game home stand Tuesday night, hosting San Jose State (8-4, 2-1 Mountain West) for a single game inside Baggett Stadium (cap.: 3,138).
The game will be broadcast on?ESPN?Radio (1280 AM and 101.7 FM) with Zachary Anderson-Yoxsimer providing the play-by-play. Links for video and audio streams as well as live stats are available on the baseball schedule page at www.GoPoly.com.
Cal Poly opened the 2022 season by a pair of one-run decisions against Washington, 6-5 and 4-3, before riding a five-run second-inning uprising to victory over the Huskies in the series finale. True freshman catcher Ryan Stafford led the way with a 5-for-11 performance at the plate, including three doubles and one RBI.
Following an 8-4 midweek win over Fresno State — sparked by a two-run home run off the bat of right fielder Matthias Haas in the fifth inning and a three-run double by shortstop Brooks Lee in the sixth — the Mustangs went out on the road and took two of three games from Missouri State in Arlington, Texas, before losing two of three contests at UNLV. In each of its first 10 games this season, Cal Poly held a lead in the sixth inning or later. Against UNLV, the two teams split the first two games of the series and the finale was tied 2-2 before the Rebels scored 10 unanswered runs in the middle innings and coasted to the win.
San Jose State will be playing its first road game Tuesday night after playing its first 12 contests at home. The Spartans won three of four games against Omaha, lost a three-game series versus Portland and opened Mountain West Conference play by taking two of three from New Mexico.
San Jose State is hitting .258 as a team with 19 doubles, one triple and 13 home runs, scoring 74 runs in their 12 games so far. The pitching staff has compiled a 6.28 ERA with 110 strikeouts over 109 innings, and the Spartans have committed 13 errors for a .971 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. The Spartans' lone College World Series appearance was in 2000.
Cal Poly and San Jose State have played 100 baseball games against each other since the series began in 1947. The Spartans hold a 52-47-1 advantage after Cal Poly claimed two of three games in early April 2021 in?San Luis Obispo. The two teams split a pair of midweek games in 2018 and San Jose won two of three games against the Mustangs in 2016.
Cal Poly is 24-26-1 against San Jose State since the Mustangs moved to Division I prior to the 1995 season. Larry Lee is 17-10-1 against San Jose State while Spartan head coach Brad Sanfilippo is 2-3 against Cal Poly.
Sanfilippo (fifth season, 66-110, UC Davis '99), a former San Jose State assistant baseball coach, was named interim baseball head coach with the Spartans in late January 2018 after then-head coach Jason Hawkins was placed on administrative leave. Hawkins submitted his resignation Feb. 12 after one season with the program. Sanfilippo was an assistant coach at San Jose State in 2013 and 2014 and also was an assistant coach at Cal for the 2010 through 2012 and the 2015 through 2017 seasons.
Sanfilippo has 10-plus seasons of head coaching experience, leading Los Gatos (Calif.) High to league championships in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009.
Picked by Mountain West Conference head coaches to finish seventh this year, San Jose State is coming off a 6-30 campaign, finishing seventh in the MWC at 2-19. A total of 18. letter winners return, including seven position starters and eight of last year's 16 pitchers. Top returnees include utility player Reece Hernandez (.250, 10 RBIs in 2021), outfielder Jack Colette (.244, 18 RBIs) and shortstop Ruben Mercado (.208, nine RBIs). The pitching staff is paced by right-hander Jonathan Clark (1-7, 6.55 ERA in 2021) and southpaws Trevor Ernt (1-5, 8.15 ERA) and Corey Sanchez (0-5, 8.83 ERA).
Sanfilippo has selected junior right-hander Aaron Eden (1-1, 4.15 ERA) as his starter for Tuesday's game at Cal Poly, facing Mustang freshman righty Steven Brooks (0-0, 3.52 ERA). Eden will be making his fourth start of the year, earning his victory against Northern Colorado on Feb. 22 as he allowed three runs and three hits over 6 1/3 innings with six strikeouts.
Left fielder Robert Hamchuk sports a .423 batting average to lead the Spartans at the plate. Second baseman Charles McAdoo is hitting .396 with 12 RBIs.
Lee welcomed back 22 lettermen off last year's squad, including seven position starters and all but three pitchers. The 2022 Mustang roster, bolstered by the addition of three transfers from Boise State and one from Washington State a year ago, has added a pair of graduate students this spring in infielder Brett Borgogno (Cal State Fullerton and Louisiana-Lafayette) and outfielder John Lagattuta (Cal) along with utility player Matthias Haas, a transfer from Brown.
Topping the list of returnees is five-time 2021 All-American Brooks Lee, a preseason All-American five times as well this spring. Projected to be a top-five draft pick in July, Lee hit a team-leading .342 with 10 home runs, 57 RBIs and a school-record 27 doubles as a redshirt freshman in 2021 en route to Big West Co-Field Player of the Year and Co-Freshman Field Player of the Year honors.
The group of returnees also includes designated hitter Matt Lopez, third baseman Tate Samuelson, first baseman Joe Yorke, second baseman Nick Marinconz, utility player Taison Corio and pitchers Drew Thorpe, Travis Weston, Bryce Warrecker, Kyle Scott and Dylan Villalobos, among several others.
The entire infield is back as Yorke made 54 starts at first base, Marinconz (27) and Corio (23) combined for 50 starts at second base, Lee started 54 games at shortstop and Samuelson was in the starting lineup 53 times at third base.
Lopez was second on the team in hitting at .341 with 26 RBIs in 39 games.
The outfield is a work in progress with the loss of Cole Cabrera in center field, Sam Biller in left and Nick DiCarlo in right. Reagan Doss, who started 21 games in the outfield last year and hit .258 with six doubles and 13 RBIs in 37 games, replaces Cabrera in center field. A pair of catchers lead the depth chart in left field — Ryan Stafford of Folsom High School and returnee Collin Villegas — while Haas of Oakland's Bishop O'Dowd High School and Brown and Lagattuta of Davis Senior High School and Cal likely will share duties in right field. Villegas and Stafford are listed 1-2 behind the plate.
On the mound Drew Thorpe was 6-1 with a 3.15 ERA in home games last spring, finishing with a 6-6 mark and 3.79 ERA. He led the squad in strikeouts with 104, which is No. 10 all-time in the Cal Poly record book, and compiled double-digit strikeouts three times in 2021. Travis Weston (5-6, 3.28 ERA) earned three complete games, the most by a Mustang pitcher since Joey Wagman also collected three complete games in 2013. Weston was a starter in Saturday doubleheaders.
Thorpe and Weston will start Friday and Saturday, respectively, for the second year in a row. Sophomore Kaden Sheedy (1-2, 5.40 ERA in 2021) got the nod for the first three Sunday games this season with freshman right-hander Steven Brooks of Cosumnes Oaks High School in Elk Grove, Calif., starting in midweek games. Sheedy made four starts in the final six weeks of the 2021 season, including a complete-game three-hitter with six strikeouts in the series finale at UC?Davis.
So far this season, Lee leads all Mustang hitters with a .476 mark, which includes seven doubles, two home runs and 16 RBIs. Freshman catcher/left fielder Ryan Stafford is hitting .356 with six doubles and a pair of home runs while junior catcher/left fielder Collin Villegas sports a .308 average with four doubles. First baseman Joe Yorke lifted his average to .306 by going 6-for-15 in four games last week while third baseman Tate Samuelson is at .300 after a 7-for-15 series at UNLV with three doubles, one homer and five RBIs.
The Mustangs have a combined 331-277 conference record (.545 winning percentage) in 24 years as a member of the Big West (no conference games were played in 2020), the last 18 under Lee. Cal Poly has had just three losing seasons since 2000 and has reached the 30-win mark 13 times this century, including 2021. The Mustangs have won 210 of their last 308 home games for a 68.2 winning percentage.
Since and including 2011, Cal Poly is the only Big West team to have a winning or .500 overall record each year (excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020 season). Also since 2011, Cal Poly is the only Big West team to finish at least fourth or higher every year, including one first place, five seconds, one third and three fourths.
Since 2011, Lee guided the Mustangs to wins in 58 of 91 Big West series with a pair of 2-2 splits for a 63.4 winning percentage. The Mustangs won seven of eight conference series in both 2014 and 2017. Cal Poly is the only Big West team to have a winning overall record in each full season since 2011 and the Mustangs are the only Big West team to finish fourth place or higher every year. Since 2003, Cal Poly has finished below fourth place only twice.
Cal Poly has had 19 MLB draft picks in the top 10 rounds since and including 2011. Only Cal State Fullerton has had more with 22. The next tier are three teams with a total of 10 in that time span. Cal Poly has had a total of 34 top-10 round MLB draft picks in the last 18 years.
Since 2012, Cal Poly has had eight Division I All-Americans. Also, since 2003, Cal Poly has had 11 players make it to the Major Leagues. In the rest of the history of the program, there were nine to have made it to The Show.
Cal Poly is seventh among 25 California Division I schools and 10th in the West Region (47 schools) with 299 wins over the last nine years (not counting 2020).
Lee (582-461-2) surpassed Fresno State's Bob Bennett for the Big?West record for overall wins with a 2-1 series-opening win at USC in February 2021. During the UC?Davis series in 2019, Lee eclipsed Cal Poly alum and former Long Beach State head coach Dave Snow with his 219th conference win. Snow guided the Dirtbags to 218 Big?West wins from 1989-2001.
Lee reached the 500-victory milestone on April 20, 2018, with a 5-4 triumph over Long Beach State. He earned 460 wins in 16 seasons at Cuesta College and notched his 460th Mustang victory on March 13, 2017 against Gonzaga and his 1,000th career victory with a 3-0 triumph at?UC?Santa Barbara on May 23, 2019. He currently has a 1,042-702-5 record over 35-plus seasons as a head coach and coached his 1,000th game as Cal Poly's head coach on April 1, 2021, a 10-1 win over UC?San Diego.
Cal Poly hosts Harvard (4-3) for a four-game weekend series (Friday at 6, Saturday doubleheader at 1, Sunday at 1 p.m.).
AUDIO STREAM | VIDEO STREAM | LIVE STATS | TICKETS
BROOKS LEE EARNS FOURTH BIG WEST PLAYER OF THE WEEK AWARD
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Cal Poly (5-6, 0-0 Big West), which split six games on the road against Missouri State and UNLV over the last two weekends, returns home to open an eight-game home stand Tuesday night, hosting San Jose State (8-4, 2-1 Mountain West) for a single game inside Baggett Stadium (cap.: 3,138).
The game will be broadcast on?ESPN?Radio (1280 AM and 101.7 FM) with Zachary Anderson-Yoxsimer providing the play-by-play. Links for video and audio streams as well as live stats are available on the baseball schedule page at www.GoPoly.com.
Cal Poly opened the 2022 season by a pair of one-run decisions against Washington, 6-5 and 4-3, before riding a five-run second-inning uprising to victory over the Huskies in the series finale. True freshman catcher Ryan Stafford led the way with a 5-for-11 performance at the plate, including three doubles and one RBI.
Following an 8-4 midweek win over Fresno State — sparked by a two-run home run off the bat of right fielder Matthias Haas in the fifth inning and a three-run double by shortstop Brooks Lee in the sixth — the Mustangs went out on the road and took two of three games from Missouri State in Arlington, Texas, before losing two of three contests at UNLV. In each of its first 10 games this season, Cal Poly held a lead in the sixth inning or later. Against UNLV, the two teams split the first two games of the series and the finale was tied 2-2 before the Rebels scored 10 unanswered runs in the middle innings and coasted to the win.
San Jose State will be playing its first road game Tuesday night after playing its first 12 contests at home. The Spartans won three of four games against Omaha, lost a three-game series versus Portland and opened Mountain West Conference play by taking two of three from New Mexico.
San Jose State is hitting .258 as a team with 19 doubles, one triple and 13 home runs, scoring 74 runs in their 12 games so far. The pitching staff has compiled a 6.28 ERA with 110 strikeouts over 109 innings, and the Spartans have committed 13 errors for a .971 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. The Spartans' lone College World Series appearance was in 2000.
Cal Poly and San Jose State have played 100 baseball games against each other since the series began in 1947. The Spartans hold a 52-47-1 advantage after Cal Poly claimed two of three games in early April 2021 in?San Luis Obispo. The two teams split a pair of midweek games in 2018 and San Jose won two of three games against the Mustangs in 2016.
Cal Poly is 24-26-1 against San Jose State since the Mustangs moved to Division I prior to the 1995 season. Larry Lee is 17-10-1 against San Jose State while Spartan head coach Brad Sanfilippo is 2-3 against Cal Poly.
Sanfilippo (fifth season, 66-110, UC Davis '99), a former San Jose State assistant baseball coach, was named interim baseball head coach with the Spartans in late January 2018 after then-head coach Jason Hawkins was placed on administrative leave. Hawkins submitted his resignation Feb. 12 after one season with the program. Sanfilippo was an assistant coach at San Jose State in 2013 and 2014 and also was an assistant coach at Cal for the 2010 through 2012 and the 2015 through 2017 seasons.
Sanfilippo has 10-plus seasons of head coaching experience, leading Los Gatos (Calif.) High to league championships in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009.
Picked by Mountain West Conference head coaches to finish seventh this year, San Jose State is coming off a 6-30 campaign, finishing seventh in the MWC at 2-19. A total of 18. letter winners return, including seven position starters and eight of last year's 16 pitchers. Top returnees include utility player Reece Hernandez (.250, 10 RBIs in 2021), outfielder Jack Colette (.244, 18 RBIs) and shortstop Ruben Mercado (.208, nine RBIs). The pitching staff is paced by right-hander Jonathan Clark (1-7, 6.55 ERA in 2021) and southpaws Trevor Ernt (1-5, 8.15 ERA) and Corey Sanchez (0-5, 8.83 ERA).
Sanfilippo has selected junior right-hander Aaron Eden (1-1, 4.15 ERA) as his starter for Tuesday's game at Cal Poly, facing Mustang freshman righty Steven Brooks (0-0, 3.52 ERA). Eden will be making his fourth start of the year, earning his victory against Northern Colorado on Feb. 22 as he allowed three runs and three hits over 6 1/3 innings with six strikeouts.
Left fielder Robert Hamchuk sports a .423 batting average to lead the Spartans at the plate. Second baseman Charles McAdoo is hitting .396 with 12 RBIs.
Lee welcomed back 22 lettermen off last year's squad, including seven position starters and all but three pitchers. The 2022 Mustang roster, bolstered by the addition of three transfers from Boise State and one from Washington State a year ago, has added a pair of graduate students this spring in infielder Brett Borgogno (Cal State Fullerton and Louisiana-Lafayette) and outfielder John Lagattuta (Cal) along with utility player Matthias Haas, a transfer from Brown.
Topping the list of returnees is five-time 2021 All-American Brooks Lee, a preseason All-American five times as well this spring. Projected to be a top-five draft pick in July, Lee hit a team-leading .342 with 10 home runs, 57 RBIs and a school-record 27 doubles as a redshirt freshman in 2021 en route to Big West Co-Field Player of the Year and Co-Freshman Field Player of the Year honors.
The group of returnees also includes designated hitter Matt Lopez, third baseman Tate Samuelson, first baseman Joe Yorke, second baseman Nick Marinconz, utility player Taison Corio and pitchers Drew Thorpe, Travis Weston, Bryce Warrecker, Kyle Scott and Dylan Villalobos, among several others.
The entire infield is back as Yorke made 54 starts at first base, Marinconz (27) and Corio (23) combined for 50 starts at second base, Lee started 54 games at shortstop and Samuelson was in the starting lineup 53 times at third base.
Lopez was second on the team in hitting at .341 with 26 RBIs in 39 games.
The outfield is a work in progress with the loss of Cole Cabrera in center field, Sam Biller in left and Nick DiCarlo in right. Reagan Doss, who started 21 games in the outfield last year and hit .258 with six doubles and 13 RBIs in 37 games, replaces Cabrera in center field. A pair of catchers lead the depth chart in left field — Ryan Stafford of Folsom High School and returnee Collin Villegas — while Haas of Oakland's Bishop O'Dowd High School and Brown and Lagattuta of Davis Senior High School and Cal likely will share duties in right field. Villegas and Stafford are listed 1-2 behind the plate.
On the mound Drew Thorpe was 6-1 with a 3.15 ERA in home games last spring, finishing with a 6-6 mark and 3.79 ERA. He led the squad in strikeouts with 104, which is No. 10 all-time in the Cal Poly record book, and compiled double-digit strikeouts three times in 2021. Travis Weston (5-6, 3.28 ERA) earned three complete games, the most by a Mustang pitcher since Joey Wagman also collected three complete games in 2013. Weston was a starter in Saturday doubleheaders.
Thorpe and Weston will start Friday and Saturday, respectively, for the second year in a row. Sophomore Kaden Sheedy (1-2, 5.40 ERA in 2021) got the nod for the first three Sunday games this season with freshman right-hander Steven Brooks of Cosumnes Oaks High School in Elk Grove, Calif., starting in midweek games. Sheedy made four starts in the final six weeks of the 2021 season, including a complete-game three-hitter with six strikeouts in the series finale at UC?Davis.
So far this season, Lee leads all Mustang hitters with a .476 mark, which includes seven doubles, two home runs and 16 RBIs. Freshman catcher/left fielder Ryan Stafford is hitting .356 with six doubles and a pair of home runs while junior catcher/left fielder Collin Villegas sports a .308 average with four doubles. First baseman Joe Yorke lifted his average to .306 by going 6-for-15 in four games last week while third baseman Tate Samuelson is at .300 after a 7-for-15 series at UNLV with three doubles, one homer and five RBIs.
The Mustangs have a combined 331-277 conference record (.545 winning percentage) in 24 years as a member of the Big West (no conference games were played in 2020), the last 18 under Lee. Cal Poly has had just three losing seasons since 2000 and has reached the 30-win mark 13 times this century, including 2021. The Mustangs have won 210 of their last 308 home games for a 68.2 winning percentage.
Since and including 2011, Cal Poly is the only Big West team to have a winning or .500 overall record each year (excluding the pandemic-shortened 2020 season). Also since 2011, Cal Poly is the only Big West team to finish at least fourth or higher every year, including one first place, five seconds, one third and three fourths.
Since 2011, Lee guided the Mustangs to wins in 58 of 91 Big West series with a pair of 2-2 splits for a 63.4 winning percentage. The Mustangs won seven of eight conference series in both 2014 and 2017. Cal Poly is the only Big West team to have a winning overall record in each full season since 2011 and the Mustangs are the only Big West team to finish fourth place or higher every year. Since 2003, Cal Poly has finished below fourth place only twice.
Cal Poly has had 19 MLB draft picks in the top 10 rounds since and including 2011. Only Cal State Fullerton has had more with 22. The next tier are three teams with a total of 10 in that time span. Cal Poly has had a total of 34 top-10 round MLB draft picks in the last 18 years.
Since 2012, Cal Poly has had eight Division I All-Americans. Also, since 2003, Cal Poly has had 11 players make it to the Major Leagues. In the rest of the history of the program, there were nine to have made it to The Show.
Cal Poly is seventh among 25 California Division I schools and 10th in the West Region (47 schools) with 299 wins over the last nine years (not counting 2020).
Lee (582-461-2) surpassed Fresno State's Bob Bennett for the Big?West record for overall wins with a 2-1 series-opening win at USC in February 2021. During the UC?Davis series in 2019, Lee eclipsed Cal Poly alum and former Long Beach State head coach Dave Snow with his 219th conference win. Snow guided the Dirtbags to 218 Big?West wins from 1989-2001.
Lee reached the 500-victory milestone on April 20, 2018, with a 5-4 triumph over Long Beach State. He earned 460 wins in 16 seasons at Cuesta College and notched his 460th Mustang victory on March 13, 2017 against Gonzaga and his 1,000th career victory with a 3-0 triumph at?UC?Santa Barbara on May 23, 2019. He currently has a 1,042-702-5 record over 35-plus seasons as a head coach and coached his 1,000th game as Cal Poly's head coach on April 1, 2021, a 10-1 win over UC?San Diego.
Cal Poly hosts Harvard (4-3) for a four-game weekend series (Friday at 6, Saturday doubleheader at 1, Sunday at 1 p.m.).
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