By Lucas Quick (@quick_lucas12) – Senior Staff Writer | (Photo by Lucas Quick – The Spear)
San Jose State baseball (7-2) dropped its first home game of the season in a 4-3 loss against Santa Clara (4-3).
Despite holding a lead through the first five innings, the Spartans dug themselves into a hole later in the match. They were fighting from behind through the second half.
The offense was dull, creating little chances and not capitalizing on them when they had the chance. SJSU only had one double and left eight players on base.
In the fourth inning, the Spartans had a golden opportunity with the bases loaded with one out. Only one run was scored from a groundout by junior infielder Drew Gianni.
It was another bullpen game, but Luca Staiano would play a big role. He pitched four innings, struck out five and allowed four hits, less than his previous outing where he pitched for only 1.2 innings.
Overall it was an improvement by the bullpen in contrast to their last game, where they had allowed seven runs and 13 hits.
“Our pitching staff does a really good job coming in and picking each other up,” Staiano said. “There’s a very selfless mindset we got going here and I think we executed that today.”
Small, mental errors had been committed by the Spartans. With a lineout double play in the first due to senior outfielder Jeriah Lewis not hustling back to first base and a misread fly ball by senior infielder Zach Chamizo gave a lot of momentum to the Broncos.
The top and middle half of SJSU’s batting order were able to rack up a couple of hits, but still are looking for some more answers on the offense.
“Still trying to figure out what our personality is offensively,” head coach Brad Sanfillipo said. “Until we figure that out, we’re going to play close games like this and it’s going to be important to win the little things.”
After a single day of rest after a long weekend series, this was still a competitive outing by the Spartans. They look to get back on the win column against San Francisco on Friday at 3:05 pm at Excite Ballpark.
