Cal Poly Continues Big West Play at UC Irvine This Weekend

Thursday, April 14

Irvine, CA

6 p.m.

UC Irvine

Photo by: Owen Main | Cal Poly Athletics

Cal Poly Continues Big West Play at UC Irvine This Weekend

4/12/2022 9:55:00 PM | Baseball

WEEKLY NOTES: CAL POLY | UC IRVINE | BIG WEST
AUDIO STREAM: THURSDAY | FRIDAY | SATURDAY
VIDEO STREAM: THURSDAY | FRIDAY | SATURDAY
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SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Cal Poly (20-12, 7-2 Big West), ranked No. 26 by Collegiate Baseball this week and off to a 7-2 start in conference games, tied for second place with CSU Bakersfield, continues Big West play this weekend by visiting UC Irvine (20-11, 8-4 Big West) on Cicerone Field at Anteater Ballpark (cap.: 3,408).

First pitches are set for 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 1 o'clock Saturday. All three games will be broadcast on ESPN Radio (1280 AM and 101.7 FM) with Chris Sylvester providing the play-by-play. The series also will be available on ESPN+. Links for video and audio streams as well as live stats are available on the baseball schedule page at www.GoPoly.com.

After a 7-9 start, Cal Poly has won 13 of its last 16 games, including five- and six-game winning streaks, moving eight games above the .500 mark for the first time since the 2016 season when the Mustangs were 10-2.

Cal Poly opened the 2022 season by dropping a pair of one-run decisions against Washington, 6-5 and 4-3, before claiming the series finale. Following an 8-4 midweek win over Fresno State, 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.

The early season slide continued as Cal Poly fell 3-1 to San Jose State and split a four-game weekend set against the Ivy League's Harvard. That series included Drew Thorpe's three-hit shutout in the opener, a grand slam by Brett Borgogno and Brooks Lee's first four-hit game as a Mustang.

On March 18, Cal Poly rallied from a 4-0 deficit with a decisive five-run eighth-inning outburst for an 8-4 triumph, providing a turning point for the Mustangs as they have lost just three times since. Cal Poly completed the sweep against the Matadors, earned a series win at UC San Diego highlighted by a combined 20-strikeout effort from Thorpe and Jason Franks, and won all five games last week — a 15-6 nod over Santa Clara and 12-3, 6-4, 9-0 and 5-3 triumphs in a sweep against Dixie State.

Cal Poly sandwiched a 28-2 loss to Long Beach State with 4-1 and 10-7 victories. Designated hitter Matt Lopez was 5-for-8 in the series and produced his first four-hit game as a Mustang. Cal Poly won the series despite hitting just .226 and compiling an 11.33 staff ERA.

In each of its first 10 games this season, Cal Poly held a lead or was tied in the sixth inning or later but lost five of the contests. The Mustangs are back above the .500 mark for the first time since winning the opener of their series against Missouri State on Feb. 26, lifting their mark to 3-2 at the time.

UC Irvine is 20-11 for the season under fourth-year head coach Ben Orloff. The Anteaters split their first 10 games with series losses to Louisiana and Oregon State and a series win over Grand Canyon before winning eight of their next nine games with series wins over Iowa and UC Davis. UC Irvine also has won five of its last six games, including two of three at UC San Diego and a 7-3 victory over Loyola Marymount on Tuesday night. The Anteaters are fourth in the Big West at 8-4, winning a series at Hawai'i while losing two of three at home versus CSUN.

UC Irvine is hitting .259 as a team with 56 doubles, 15 triples and 19 home runs, scoring 189 runs in its 31 games so far. The Anteaters are first in the Big West in triples (15) and batters hit by pitches (48) and second in doubles (56), sacrifice flies (21), WHiP (1.40) and win-loss percentage (.645). The pitching staff has compiled a 4.03 ERA, third in the Big West, with 297 strikeouts over 285 2/3 innings, and the Anteaters have committed 38 errors for a .968 fielding percentage.

UC Irvine has qualified for the NCAA regionals 14 times (nine in Division I), compiling a 29-19 win-loss record in Division I postseason competition and qualifying for the College World Series in 2007 and 2014. The Anteaters, who discontinued baseball from 1993-2001, won the Big West title in 2009 and 2021.

Cal Poly and UC Irvine have met 61 times on the baseball field since the series began when both teams were Southern California Baseball Alliance members back in 1977. The Anteaters hold a 34-27 advantage, winning three of four games at Baggett Stadium a year ago, two of three games at Anteater Ballpark in 2019 and two of three at Baggett Stadium in 2018. The Mustangs won two of three games in both 2016 and 2017.

Cal Poly is 24-34 against UC Irvine since the Mustangs moved to Division I prior to the 1995 season. Larry Lee is 23-32 against UC Irvine while Ben Orloff is 5-2 versus Cal Poly.

Orloff (fourth season, 108-53, UC Irvine '09), a three-year All-American shortstop at UC Irvine, was hired in July 2018 as the ninth head coach in Anteater program history. Orloff initially joined the coaching staff in 2014 as an assistant, rising to associate head coach. He was the program's first Big West Player of the Year, won the 2009 Brooks Wallace Award and was also the first Anteater player to win an American Baseball Coaches Association Gold Glove award.

Orloff, a lifetime .320 hitter at UC Irvine, also was named to two NCAA Tournament teams and helped UC Irvine to four post-season berths. He holds the NCAA single-season mark of 34 sacrifice bunts set in 2007 and in a career with 86. Orloff was drafted in the ninth round by the Houston Astros and climbed to Double-A Corpus Christi before moving into the coaching ranks.

Orloff was also a participant in the World Baseball Classic in 2012 as a member of Team Israel. Orloff replaced Mike Gillespie, who was 1,156-720-2 in 31 seasons as a college head coach — 20 years at USC and 11 more at UC Irvine. Gillespie was head coach at College of the Canyons for 16 seasons and played left field on USC's 1961 national championship team.

Picked by Big West head coaches to finish second this year, UC Irvine welcomed back a total of 19 letter winners, including six position starters and 10 pitchers. Top returnees include outfielder Nathan Church (.369, six home runs, 61 RBIs in 2021), infielder Jacob Castro (.314, 34 RBIs) and outfielder Luke Spillane (.306, five home runs, 45 RBIs, 14 steals). The pitching staff is paced by right-handers Michael Frias (9-2, 3.36 ERA in 2021) and Jacob King (3-1, 1.98 ERA, eight saves) along with southpaw Nick Pinto (7-4, 3.43 ERA).

Thirty-one games into the 2022 season, Church leads the way offensively for the Anteaters with a .321 average, driving in 22 runs, while first baseman Ben Fitzgerald sports a .314 mark with four home runs and 16 RBIs. Third baseman Dub Gleed, the reigning Big West Field Player of the Week, is hitting.307 with eight doubles and 24 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.

As the team's designated hitter, 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 four Sunday games this season with freshman right-hander Steven Brooks of Cosumnes Oaks High School in Elk Grove, Calif., starting the midweek contests. 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 .413 mark, first in the Big West, which includes 17 doubles, a triple, seven home runs and 36 RBIs. He is on pace to surpass his own school doubles record (27) set last year as well as his 57 total RBIs in 2021, and had a career-long 19-game hitting streak snapped by Long Beach State last weekend. Sophomore second baseman Nick Marinconz sports a .333 average with three doubles, a home run and seven RBIs while freshman catcher/left fielder Ryan Stafford is hitting .301 with 12 doubles, a pair of home runs and 15 RBIs. Catcher/left fielder Collin Villegas has lifted his average 91 points to .307 over his last 16 games, going 19-for-51 (.373) with 10 doubles, two home runs and 23 RBIs.

The Mustangs have a combined 338-279 conference record (.548 winning percentage) in 24-plus years as a member of the Big West (no conference games were played in 2020), the last 18-plus 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 222 of their last 324 home games for a 68.5 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 has guided the Mustangs to wins in 61 of 94 Big West series with a pair of 2-2 splits for a 64.9 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 (2012-21, not counting 2020).

Lee (20th season, 597-467-2, Pepperdine '83) 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 1,057-708-5 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.

Next week, Cal Poly hosts Stanford on Tuesday night before continuing Big West play with a three-game series at UC Riverside (Friday and Saturday at 6 p.m., Sunday at 1 o'clock).