March 8, 2017
Lineup. True frosh Johnny Mendoza getting his first Spartan start. #omahaknows #sjsu #sjsuspartans
A post shared by San Jose State Baseball (@sjsubaseball) on Mar 7, 2017 at 5:59pm PST
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The Spartans jumped out to an early lead scoring eight runs in the first four frames to cruise to a 9-2 non-conference win against the Pacific Tigers on Tuesday night.
San Jose State climbed above the .500 mark for the season at 6-5 (2-1 MW) while Pacific fell below .500 at 5-6.
SJSU utilized 11 pitchers on the night with starter Jake Swiech going 3.0 innings in a pre-determined "staff" pitching rotation.
The Spartans got a run in the bottom of the first when cleanup hitter Shane Timmons (1-for-4, R, 2 RBI) hit a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded to score Aaron Pleschner (2-for-4, 2 R). Tigers' starter Kyle Ostrowski struggled with his control and walked the first three batters, including Pleschner, before being pulled out.
In the second, the Spartans sent nine batters to the plate, getting four hits off of Miles Haddad, who came into relief Ostrowski, scoring four runs. Timmons and Michael Breen (1-for-4, 2 RBI) each had RBI singles to help break the game open, 5-0 after two innings.
From the fourth inning out, San Jose State utilized at least one pitcher in each inning. Graham Gomez and Joseph Balfour bookended the relieving carousel pitching a full inning in the fourth and ninth. In between, eight Spartans pitched just a 1/3 or 2/3 of an inning to match up with the Pacific lineup.
Swiech (1-0) picked up the win for the Spartans while Ostrowski (0-2) took the loss for the Tigers.
The Spartans return to Mountain West conference action when they travel to New Mexico to take on the Lobos in the weekend series starting, Friday, March 10. First pitch is 6:00 p.m. MT.