Cal Poly to Open Big West Play at Home Against Hawai'i

Friday, March 17

San Luis Obispo, CA

6 p.m.

Hawai'i

Steven Brooks will make his first weekend start of the 2023 season on Saturday during Cal Poly's Big West-opening series against Hawai'i inside Baggett Stadium.

Photo by: Owen Main | Cal Poly Athletics

Cal Poly to Open Big West Play at Home Against Hawai'i

3/16/2023 12:42:00 PM | Baseball

WEEKLY NOTES: CAL POLY | HAWAI'I | BIG WEST
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AUDIO STREAM: FRIDAY | SATURDAY | SUNDAY
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SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Cal Poly (3-11, 0-0 Big West), which opened its 2023 baseball season by winning two of three games against Missouri State, its first series win to open a season since 2016, but has lost 10 of its last 11 contests, continues its 14-game home stand and opens Big?West Conference play this weekend by hosting Hawai'i (7-7, 0-0 Big West) at Baggett Stadium (cap.: 3,138).

First pitches are set for 6 p.m. Friday, 4 o'clock Saturday and 1 p.m. Sunday. All three games of the series will be broadcast on ESPN Radio (1280 AM and 101.7 FM) with Zachary Anderson-Yoxsimer calling the play-by-play and video streamed on ESPN+ with Chris Sylvester on the mic. Links for audio and video streams as well as for live stats are available on the baseball schedule page at www.GoPoly.com.

After opening with two wins in three games versus Missouri State, Cal Poly led San Jose State 11-10 before play was halted after eight innings due to darkness on Feb. 20. That game will be resumed April 18 in San Luis Obispo. The Mustangs then lost all three games in Berkeley — two to Cal and one to UConn, which won 50 games a year ago — won just once in four contests against No. 18 Oregon State and dropped three more games last week — 7-1 to Xavier on Tuesday and, after the UNLV series was canceled due to wet weather, 12-4 and 8-4 to UC Santa Barbara in a Sunday doubleheader. Cal Poly fell to USC 16-3 on Wednesday night.

Hawai'i opened its 2023 season by winning three of four games against Wright State before losing two of three games in the Tony Gwynn Legacy at San Diego. The Rainbow Warriors won twice in three Cambria College Classic contests at Minneapolis, then fell to 7-7 with three losses in four games versus UConn. A year ago, the Mustangs claimed second place in the Big West for the fourth time in the last five full seasons, winning 22 of 30 games and nine of the 10 series.

Cal Poly returned just three position starters — first baseman Joe Yorke and catchers Ryan Stafford and Collin Villegas, one of whom plays left field when not behind the plate — off last year's 37-21 club. Yorke hit .353 with 51 RBIs and committed just two errors in 475 fielding chances while Stafford compiled a .321 average with 16 doubles and 33 RBIs, throwing out 11 would-be base stealers and picking off four others. Villegas hit .290 with 20 doubles and 40 RBIs. Yorke and Stafford were first-team All-Big West selections while Villegas landed on the second unit.

Pitching could be a strength of the club with a dozen returnees, including Travis Weston, Cal Poly's Saturday starter the last two years. Bryce Warrecker, who had a strong summer in the Cape Cod League, and Derek True, a 20th-round draft pick of the Oakland Athletics last July, also return.

After a 7-9 start, Cal Poly put together five- and six-game winning streaks, moving 10 games above the .500 mark for the first time since the 2016 season by taking two of three games in back-to-back Big West series on the road at UC Irvine and UC Riverside. The Mustangs won 13 straight games, the longest in a single season for the program before losing the season finale at Hawai'i.

Hawai'i returned 21 lettermen, including seven starting position players and seven pitchers, off a squad that finished 28-24 in 2022 and sixth in the Big West at 16-14 in Rich Hill's first year as head coach of the Rainbow Warriors. Top returnees include shortstop Jordan Donahue (.298, 20 RBIs, nine steals in 2022), second baseman Stone Miyao (.292, 35 RBIs) and center fielder Matt Wong (.298, five home runs, 41 RBIs). The pitching staff is headed by southpaws Tai Atkins (4-2, 4.24 ERA, two saves in 2022) and Connor Harrison (3-1, 4.96 ERA, one save) and right-hander Dalton Renne (4-3, 4.50 ERA, six saves).

Fourteen games into the 2023 season, right fielder Jared Quandt leads all Hawai'i hitters with a .439 average, three home runs and 10 RBIs. Third baseman Kyson Donahue is next with a .321 average, three home runs and 13 RBIs and Wong also is hitting .321 with three home runs and 12 RBIs. First baseman Ben Ziegler-Namoa is hitting .311 with 12 RBIs. On the mound, right-hander Alex Giroux is 2-0 with a 1.26 ERA while southpaw Randy Abshier is 0-1 with a 4.20 ERA. Harry Gustin, also a left-hander, is 1-1 with a 5.87 ERA while Harrison has two saves along with an 0-1 mark and 1.42 ERA.

Hawai'i is hitting .273 as a team with 24 doubles, two triples, 14 home runs and 13 steals in 19 attempts. The Rainbow Warriors' pitching staff has compiled a 6.77 ERA with 113 strikeouts over 121 innings and Hawai'i has committed 16 errors in 14 games for a .970 fielding percentage.

Cal Poly has a 29-12 advantage over Hawai'i in the series dating back to 1995, sweeping a four-game series at Baggett Stadium to close out the 2021 season and winning two of three games in Manoa last spring. Cal Poly is 22-6 against Hawai'i since the Rainbow Warriors joined the Big West in 2013, including a 13-3 mark at home and 9-3 in Honolulu. The Mustangs have won all nine series, including sweeps in 2014, 2015 and 2021.

Larry Lee is 22-6 against Hawai'i while Rich Hill is 18-13 against Cal Poly, all but last year's three games while he was head coach at San Diego (17-11).

Among the 17 former Rainbow Warriors who made it to the Major Leagues are Kolten Wong, Josh Rojas and Glenn Braggs.

Hawai'i played its first Big West season in baseball in 2013 after 33 years in the Western Athletic Conference, claiming titles in 1991, 1992 and 2011 and the tournament crown in 2010. Cal Poly also played in the WAC in 1995 and 1996 before joining the Big West. The Rainbow Warriors reached the College World Series in 1980, finishing second, and have made 13 NCAA regional appearances, the last in 2010.

Hill (second season at Hawai'i (35-31), 38th year overall (1,114-769-4), Cal Lutheran '84), was head coach at San Diego for 23 seasons (1999-2021), guiding the Toreros to nine NCAA postseason appearances and seven West Coast Conference championships, before he was named to replace Mike Trapasso as head coach at Hawai'i in June 2021.

Also a head coach at San Francisco from 1994-98 and his alma mater, Cal Lutheran (1988-93), Hill has won 1,114 games in 37-plus years as a head coach at the college level. Hill played baseball at San Diego State and Cal Lutheran before spending one year in the St. Louis Cardinals minor league system.

Cal Poly's first full practice session of 2023 on Jan. 27 featured 18 newcomers and a completely new staff of assistant coaches under 21st-year head coach Larry Lee. Pitching coach Seth Moir, an assistant at San Jose State the last two seasons, outfielder coach and associate head coach/recruiting coordinator Matt Fonteno, who has served as an assistant coach at USC, UC Santa Barbara, Saint Mary's and Nevada the last 10 years, and Logan Denholm, a catcher at UC Davis and Sacramento State and most recently a volunteer assistant coach at San Jose State, were hired last summer.

The staff had the unenviable task of finding replacements for a pair of multiple All-Americans — Drew Thorpe and shortstop Brooks Lee, both drafted last July by the New York Yankees (second round) and Minnesota Twins (eighth overall selection), respectively. Lee hit .342 in 2021 and .357 last spring, combining for 25 home runs and 112 RBIs in the two seasons en route to a pair of Big West Conference Field Player of the Year awards. Thorpe was 10-1 with a 2.32 ERA and a school-record 149 strikeouts, which led the nation at the conclusion of the 2022 regular season, on his way to Big West Pitcher of the Year honors.

With their departure, Lee and his new coaching staff were faced with finding and developing replacements for three infield positions, two in the outfield and the designated hitter along with two starters in the weekend pitching rotation.

"It's a total rebuild, especially on the position player side where we only return three regulars from last year's squad," said Lee. "Our offensive and defensive lineups will look totally different than a year ago with six of nine new faces in the starting lineup every game.

"You're going to see some inexperience that could possibly show early on, but hopefully those players will allow themselves to slow the game down as the season progresses. With so many new faces in our offensive and defensive lineups, you're going to see some growing pains early in the season. We can't allow that to go on for too long," Lee added.

"Individually you're not going to replace guys like Brooks and Drew, two players who were as good as anyone in the country. Not only did they put up incredible numbers, they took on the responsibility of having the bull's-eyes on their backs and allowing all of their teammates to stay within themselves and not think that they had to do anything special.

"The effect that they had on games is hard to measure. You're hoping that you can get better in the other positions from last year in order to become more of a complete well-rounded team."

The preseason depth chart has two transfers topping the middle infield candidates — Ryan Fenn of Cuesta College at second base and Aaron Casillas of CSU Bakersfield at shortstop. A third transfer, Jake Steels of Hancock College, is expected to start in center field. True freshman Tate Shimao, redshirt freshman Tanner Sagouspe and either Matthias Haas (who transfered to Cal Poly from Brown a year ago) or true freshman Evan Cloyd are expected to start at third base, right field and designated hitter.

The Mustangs' weekend rotation on the mound so far has featured Warrecker on Friday, Travis Weston for the third straight year on Saturday and College of San Mateo transfer Ryan Baum (4-1, 1.62 ERA last spring) on Sunday. Weston was 7-3 with a 3.91 ERA a year ago and has five career complete games as a Mustang, including three shutouts. Warrecker missed the first half of the 2022 season due to injury and finished 2-0 with a 5.81 ERA before earning the Cape Cod League's most outstanding pitcher award while pitching for the Orleans Firebirds.

Other potential starters include Kaden Sheedy (3-2, 5.23 ERA), Steven Brooks (0-2, 5.33 ERA) and newcomers Freddy Rodriguez (River City HS), all right-handers. Top candidates in the bullpen are True (1-1, 4.79 ERA), Kyle Scott (0-3, 6.26 ERA, three saves) and Carlo Lopiccolo, among others. Scott produced seven saves and two wins in 2021.

The Mustangs opened their 2023 season with a robust .336 batting average in their three-game series against Missouri State, including eight doubles, a triple and three home runs, but hit just .224 in three losses at Berkeley — two to Cal and one to UConn — .188 in the four-game series versus Oregon State and .224 in three losses last week to Xavier and UC Santa Barbara. Ryan Stafford was 5-for-11 with two doubles and center fielder Wyatt King added four singles.

Steels sported a team-leading .438 batting average with a home run and three RBIs before he was sidelined two weeks with an injury. Yorke also was out with an injury for two weeks after hitting .308 average with eight RBIs. Both returned to the lineup last weekend. Steels is hitting .360 to date, Stafford .304 with six doubles, Casillas .268 with five doubles and Yorke .256 with five doubles and nine RBIs. Villegas leads the team with 11 RBIs while Stafford, Casillas and Yorke each has nine.

The Mustangs are hitting .242 as a team, 10th in the 11-team Big West, and the staff ERA is at 6.36, also 10th in the conference. Cal Poly has committed 15 errors in 13 games for a .967 fielding percentage and has stolen just five bases in seven attempts.

Lee (21st season, 617-487-2, Pepperdine '83) reached the 600-victory milestone April 22, 2022, with a 9-3 nod over UC Riverside. 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 1,077-727-5 record over 36-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 won 11 of its 15 series in 2022 with a 2-2 split versus Harvard, losing series only against Big West champion UC Santa Barbara and non-conference foes Washington and UNLV. The Mustangs earned five sweeps versus Dixie State, CSUN, CSU Bakersfield and UC Davis at home and perennial national power Cal State Fullerton on the road, their first ever at Goodwin Field.

Cal Poly was ranked in the top 30 in the Collegiate Baseball national poll four times in April and also earned a No. 18 ranking during the final week of the regular season.

Cal Poly averaged 1,900 fans over 32 home dates last season, a Baggett Stadium record. The 2,738 fans who came out to see Stanford on April 19 was a record for a midweek game and the Mustangs have drawn at least 1,000 fans for each of their last 132 consecutive home games -- not including the 12 dates in 2021 when crowds were limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Next week, Cal Poly wraps up its 14-game home stand with a three-game weekend Big West series against UC Irvine (Friday at 6 p.m., Saturday at 4 p.m., Sunday at 1 o'clock).