By Marissa Scott (@marissascotttt ):
San Jose State baseball takes on Mountain West rival Fresno State over the weekend in search of their first conference win of the season.
The Spartans (6-9, 0-5 MW) dropped two out of the three games they played against the Bulldogs (11-6, 2-4 MW) last season. Fresno owns SJSU in the all-time record at 162-85.
The Spartans enter the series on a three-game losing streak after they were swept by Nevada in Reno. The Bulldogs come in with a two-game win streak after taking two out of three from New Mexico.
Fresno State will head to Municipal Stadium for the first time since the 2016 season.
Bulldogs’ junior outfielder Zach Ashford is leading the team and the Mountain West with a .448 batting average. He tops the team with a .603 slugging percentage and a .493 on-base percentage.
Four different Bulldogs have three home runs on the season and their offense ranks No. 2 in the conference with 14 home runs.
Spartan senior Brett Bautista leads the team with a .550 batting average, a .775 slugging percentage and has two home runs. Through 40 at bats, Bautista has only struck out twice, the lowest strikeout percentage on the team.
Senior pitcher Josh Goldberg (1-1) will take the mound for the Spartans in the first game of the series followed by junior Andrew Mitchel (1-0) and freshman Nicholas Morales (1-2) in the second and third games.
Fresno’s pitching fares well against the rest of the Mountain West. Although they are third with a 3.22 ERA, they lead with a .213 opposing batting average and 173 strikeouts.
Junior pitcher Edgar Gonzalez leads the team with a 1.93 ERA and has only allowed six runs through 28 innings pitched. He tops the conference with 39 strikeouts and is tied for first with three wins.
The Spartans are last in the conference with a combined 7.37 ERA.
SJSU comes into the series as the underdogs against Fresno and its pitching needs to avoid giving free bases to have a chance to win.
First pitch at Muni is slated for 4 p.m on Saturday and the series will conclude with a double header on Sunday.