By Marissa Scott (@marissascotttt ):
San Jose State baseball heads north for a weekend series against host University of San Francisco and Sacramento State at Benedetti Diamond.
In its series last year, SJSU (2-3) took one out of the four games from USF (2-2). The Spartans haven’t played the Hornets (2-3) since they left the Western Athletic Conference in 2013.
The Spartans struggled on the road last year with a 6-24 record and lost both games they played at the Dons’ house. USF had a winning home record last season, and the Hornets finished the 2017 season 11-14 away from Sacramento.
Starting pitching hasn’t been the best for SJSU.
Over its first five starts of the season, freshman Brandon Ross has been the only starter to reach the fifth inning. He went 5.1 innings and allowed three earned runs against Santa Clara.
Because of the inability to pitch late into games, the Spartans’ bullpen has had to work extra hard. With four arms in the bullpen hurt, it puts even more of a strain on the late-inning arms.
In the first five games of the season, SJSU struggled with stranding runners on base and not being able to take advantage of errors and free bases. In the game against Santa Clara, the Spartans stranded 10 runners.
In their first three games, the Dons have an ERA of 5.54 and the Spartans need to capitalize on it. If they can find a way to hit the ball early in the game, their bullpen is capable of keeping the team in the game.
In five games, the Hornets starting pitchers have out-performed their bullpen. In their first three games and in their last game, the starters pitched at least five innings with zero earned runs and 22 strikeouts.
Shane Timmons is still on watch for the all-time home run leaderboard at SJSU. He is six home runs away from passing John Fagan in the No. 1 spot with 25.
There are also rumors close to the team that senior outfielder Brett Bautista, who sat out all last season might be back in the lineup at some point this weekend.
The first game of the series is at 10:30 a.m. against USF. On Sunday, the Spartans will take on Sac State at 10:30 a.m and USF again at 2 p.m.