Ryan Stafford's third home run of the season, an eighth-inning grand slam Sunday, lifted Cal Poly to a Big West series-clinching 7-3 victory over UC Irvine in Baggett Stadium.
Photo by: Maddie Harrell
Stafford Slam Powers Cal Poly to Big West Series Win over UC Irvine
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- Ryan Stafford's grand slam down the left-field line snapped a 3-3 tie and lifted Cal Poly to a 7-3 victory over UC Irvine, clinching a three-game Big West Conference series Sunday afternoon before 1,682 inside Baggett Stadium.
Stafford's third home run of the year was initially ruled foul by the third-base umpire, but Mustang head coach and third-base coach Larry Lee asked for a conference and, after a two-minute discussion, the decision was overturned.
Junior right-hander Ryan Baum, who retired the first 10 batters he faced in relief of starter Kaden Sheedy and first reliever Chris Baytosh, allowed a leadoff walk but nothing else in the ninth to nail down the victory.
With the win, Cal Poly has won three of its last four games after a run of 12 losses in 13 contests, improving to 6-14 overall and 3-3 in Big West games. UC Irvine, ranked No. 30 this week, fell to 13-7 and 2-4.
Ryan Baum retired 13 of the 14 UC Irvine
batters he faced Sunday for the 7-3 win.
"Good series for us," said Lee. "You win a close one on Friday, lose a close one on Saturday and still had the resilience to come back and play pretty much a complete game on Sunday and get the series win.
"That's what this part of the season is all about. Everything is all about the series," Lee added. "We dug ourselves such a big hole with our losses in the non-conference portion of the schedule. We want to win our midweek games, but there is no emphasis on it and we just gear up for the weekend and see if we can stack up some wins.
"I just told our guys you just want to hang with the upper third of our conference, get some runs, reel off some wins and make it interesting. We have a very young team. We lost a lot of quality players from last year and we knew we were going to have some possible early season struggles, but you really just don't know until the lights go on for real."
Cal Poly has started as many as seven newcomers -- true freshmen or transfers -- this season. The only regular veterans have been Joe Yorke at first base, Stafford behind the plate and Collin Villegas in left field.
"We played well on the first weekend and, after that, not so well," said Lee. "We had some opportunities. We're just trying to get better as a team each and every week, and this was a pretty good week for us."
As in Friday's 5-4 victory in which Cal Poly rallied from a trio of one-run deficits, the Mustangs were forced to rally again Sunday, erasing 1-0 and 3-2 deficits for the win.
Joe Yorke's single up the middle tied the game at 1-1 and Cal Poly took a 2-1 lead in the third on a solo home run to left by Collin Villegas, his sixth of the season.
UC Irvine regained the advantage, 3-2, with two unearned runs in the fifth and it stayed that way until the bottom of the eighth, thanks to Baum's performance on the mound.
Sheedy pitched four strong innings, allowing one run and two hits with two walks and five strikeouts, before giving way to Baytosh, who surrendered the pair of unearned runs in the fifth.
Baum entered the game with two outs and the bases full of Anteaters in the fifth and retired Jacob Stinton on his second pitch, a fly ball to center field, to end the threat. Stinson was the first of 10 consecutive UC Irvine batters retired by Baum, keeping Cal Poly in the one-run game.
Then in the Mustang eighth, Cal Poly loaded the bases with nobody out as Wyatt King was hit by a pitch, Ryan Fenn walked and Kemet Brown reached on an infield single to third base. Everybody moved up 90 feet on Jake Steels' RBI single to center field, tying the game at 3-3.
Facing Jacob King, who earned eight saves, three wins and a 1.98 ERA en route to a pair of All-America awards and first-team All-Big West honors two years ago, Stafford, 1-for-13 in the series at the time, hit a 1-1 pitch high into the air down the left-field line. A video review shows the ball hit the bottom of the Sesloc sign on the left-field foul pole and caromed back onto the field just to the left of the line.
A ball that hits any part of the foul pole above the fence line is a home run.
Baum (2-2) completed his solid relief performance with a strikeout, groundout and flyout in the top of the ninth, retiring 13 of the 14 UC Irvine batters he faced in the game for the win. Baum struck out one and walked one in 4 1/3 scoreless, hitless innings.
"Our bullpen has always been a key for our success throughout the years," said Lee. "On Friday we went with our two main guys, Derek True and Kyle Scott, to get the one-run win. Today, Sheedy threw on a very offensive day at Baggett -- wind blowing out -- and pitched four innings. Baum threw 4 1/3 innings with not a lot of pitches, struck out one and got a lot of weak contact and a lot of popups to the outfield. He did a great job against a very offensive team in different elements today. Baggett plays very different during the day than when the sun goes down."
Though the score was close until the bottom of the eighth, Cal Poly dominated the hit column on the scoreboard, finishing with a 14-2 advantage. Steels, Villegas, Brown, Tate Shimao and Aaron Casillas all had two hits for the Mustangs.
UC Irvine's pair of hits were a double by Stinson in the fourth inning and a single by Anthony Martinez in the opening frame.
"We're getting a little bit better and that's all we can ask at this point," said Lee.
Concluding a 14-game home stand with Sunday's win, Cal Poly plays four contests on the road next week, visiting Fresno State on Tuesday and Long Beach State for a three-game Big West series Friday through Sunday.
