By Matt Weiner (@mattweiner20) – Baseball Beat Reporter // Photo via Titus Wilkinson of The Spear
New Mexico showed SJSU baseball’s pitching staff why it entered as the third-best hitting team in the country after the Spartans’ 16-8 loss Thursday night in Albuquerque.
“We know that playing on the road is difficult, but everybody has to do it though, so it all evens out ” said SJSU head coach Brad Sanfilippo.
SJSU (13-11, 6-4 MW) starting pitcher Jonathan Clark allowed eight runs and eight hits in his three innings of work including three home runs and two doubles.
“Jonathan [Clark] wasn’t his best tonight, but it’s hard on the first game of the series because you get to your bullpen earlier than you want to,” said Sanflippo. The Spartans used five members of their bullpen during the los.
UNM’s Reed Spenrath hit a three-run home run to cap off a two-out three-run rally in the first and Justin Holland and Justin Olson tacked on home runs off Clark, too. Spenrath went 4-5 with six RBI and added two doubles as SJSU has now allowed 29 runs in its last two games.
The Lobos (16-11, 6-6 MW) wreaked havoc without their best hitter Dylan Ditzenberger who’s .450 batting average is top-10 nationwide and best in the Mountain West and his .500 on base percentage is second-best in the conference. It’s highly likely he won’t be able to play this series after getting hurt last Saturday against San Diego State.
“There’s no excuses to be made. We got to find a way to win on the road,” said Sanfilippo.
SJSU entered a .5 game behind SDSU for first place in the Mountain West, but now trail by one game after the loss.
The Spartans cut the deficit to 8-7 after scoring three in the fifth, but in the bottom half of the inning the Lobos extended the lead 10-7 and poured on eight more runs from there.
SJSU’s Jesse Gutierrez was the first arm out of the pen and gave up two runs and Ethan Ross allowed six earned runs and started the the sixth inning, but was unable to finish it.
SJSU’s middle of the order in Charles McAdoo, Dalton Bowling and Hunter Dorraugh combined for six of SJSU’s eight hits and scored six of SJSU’s eight runs. Bowling clubbed his team-leading fifth home run of the year to spark SJSU’s three-run second inning.
The rest of the team went 2-21 and the Spartans only scored one run in the final four innings after scoring seven runs in the first five innings.
The Spartans look to get back on track tomorrow in game two of three game series at 1 p.m. PT and 2 p.m. MT.