March 12, 2018
San Jose, Calif. --- The San José State University baseball team (6-9, 0-5 MW) will play the Pacific Tigers (7-10) Tuesday night at Municipal Stadium at 5:00 p.m.
Live Stats:
Live Video: Mountain West Network
Social Media: @SJSUBaseball
The Road So Far
The Spartans begin their 2018 season under the direction of interim head coach Brad Sanfilippo. The team has posted a 6-9 record through its 15 games this season. The Spartans are still searching for their first win in conference play after getting swept in Nevada.
The Spartan offense is currently led by the offensive firepower of senior Brett Bautista. Bautista has a .550 batting average through 10 games this season with two home runs. Even though he has played in less than 70% of the teams games, the senior has racked up 22 hits and 12 RBI's. He leads the team with a .775 slugging percentage.
The team has picked up wins against Northern Colorado, Sacramento State, San Francisco, Cal Poly, and Utah.
Pitching Staff
This season, the 11 Spartan newcomers that have pitched on the roster have accounted for 83 of the 119 strikeouts this season. They have also recorded three of the teams six wins.
In the Spartans last three wins, the San José State pitchers held batters to 6-for-41 with runners in scoring position. In the losses over the weekend, they only held batters 16-for-36 with runners in scoring position.
POSSIBLE STARTERS FOR GAME
Tuesday
RHP Walker Brinkman (1-0)
RHP Josh Zanger (0-0)
RHP Anders Davidson (0-0)
Pacific
Overview: The Pacific Tigers are 7-10 this season under first year head coach Ryan Garko. The Tigers have defeated Cal Poly, Nevada, and #12-Indiana.
Last time out: The last time the Tigers competed was in a three game series against #12-Indiana. Pacific defeated the Hoosiers by throwing error to give the Tigers the 2-1 victory. The last two games of the series were both two run differences that left Indiana on top to improve them to 11-4 on the season.
Pitching: The Tigers have four pitchers that have thrown more than 15.0 innings this season. The team leader in ERA is Cooper Casad with a 1.02 earned run average. Casad has allowed just four runs through 17.2 innings this season.
Shelby Lackey is the teams leader in strikeouts with 21. Ricky Reynoso leads with the most innings pitched at 23.0.
Fresh Faces
This season, the Spartan baseball team features four fresh faces in the coaching staff: Interim head coach Brad Sanfilippo, assistant coach Tyler LaTorre, volunteer assistant coach Clay Cederquist, and volunteer assistant coach Michael Breen.
Brad Sanfilippo is making his second stint with the Spartans after serving two seasons as recruiting coordinator and third base coach during the 2013 & 14 seasons. Sanfilippo has coached more than 20 players into the MLB draft.
Tyler LaTorre comes to the Spartans after two seasons at San Francisco State as the team's pitching coach and recruiting coordinator. He brings nearly a decade of professional baseball experience to the San José State baseball team. LaTorre has helped players such as Tim Lincecum, Hunter Strickland, and 2014 World Series MVP Madison Bumgarner.
Clay Cederquist joins the Spartan squad after serving as head coach of the Dodge City A's summer collegiate baseball team. Currently he is an associate scout for the Miami Marlins. He is also the first base and hitting coach at American River Community College in Sacramento, California.
Michael Breen is a 2017 graduate of San José State. He started games at second base, third base, shortstop, right field, left field and designated hitter in his Spartan career. Breen was a three-time Academic All-Mountain West honoree.
Shane "Timbo" Timmons
The three-time letter winner from Mission Viejo, California has started in 118 of the last 119 games for the Spartans. No San José State baseball player has more homers the last four seasons than Timmons with 20. He is currently tied for fourth in all-time home runs with Kyle Bellows. The current record was set nearly 20 years ago by John Fagan with 25 home runs. The 2017 second team All-Mountain West first baseman finished in the top-10 in several MW conference categories: ninth in slugging percentage (.648), tied for seventh in triples (2), fifth in home runs (7), tied for sixth in hit by pitches (6), first in sacrifice flies (5) and tied for eighth in stolen bases (5).
He is the first Spartan to lead the team in batting average two consecutive seasons since Kevin Frandsen in 2003 and 2004 seasons. Frandsen would become a 12th round pick in the 2004 MLB Draft, and play nine seasons of major league baseball. He would later be inducted into the San José State Sports Hall of Fame in 2014.
Bautista is Back
After Bautista redshirted the 2017 season and playing only 10 games of 2016, the senior returns to the Spartan lineup without missing a step. Bautista, who has not recorded a hit since March 1, 2016 has a team leading batting average of .550 through 10 games with 22 hits and 12 RBI's.
This season, the senior has six three hit games. He has recorded 22 hits and 12 RBI's while playing in under 70% of the team's games. In Nevada he hit his first home run in nearly three years...then he hit another the very next day.
Last time out
The San José State baseball team (6-9, 0-5 MW) lost all three games in their series with their conference opponent Nevada. In game two, eight different Spartans got on base in a 10-9 loss to the Wolf Pack.
The Spartans had a 4-1 lead heading into the bottom of the fifth with the help of Kyle Morrison, Brett Buatista, Chris Williams, and David Campbell. However, a big inning from Nevada in the bottom of the fifth gave the Pack a 6-4 lead.
The Spartans would battle back to tie the game up 6-6 in the seventh with a hit from Shane Timmons, and a fielding error from the Nevada short stop.
San José State would give up three runs in the eight and give the Wolf Pack a 9-6 advantage heading into the ninth inning.
Spartans would start off the inning strong with a triple from Kellen Strahm. Bautista would single through the left side and drive the sophomore home to make it 9-7.
A clutch home run to left field from Shane Timmons brought Bautista home for the tying score 9-9.
San José State walked two batters and hit one to load the bases and lose the game on a sac fly from Joshua Zamora.
Big innings continue to plague San José State. The Spartans have given up 68 runs in innings 4-6, but only 46 through innings 1-3 & 7-9.