SAN DIEGO - LHP Jesse Gutierrez threw a career-high 7.0 IP with a career-high eight strikeouts to lead [3] San José State baseball (23-31, 16-14 MW) in an 8-5 win against [2] New Mexico (28-25, 17-13 MW) in their first game of the 2024 Mountain West Baseball Championship from Tony Gwynn Stadium on the campus of San Diego State Thursday afternoon.
The Spartans got out to a 4-0 lead and the Lobos could only cut it to one on multiple occasions until the Spartans put one across in the fourth inning and two in the sixth to take an 8-4 lead they wouldn't relinquish.
- This is the third season in a row the Spartans have won their first game of the Mountain West Championship as they look for back-to-back championships
- For Gutierrez, his previous high in innings pitched was 4.0 and his previous high in strikeouts were five
- Gutierrez came in relief in the third inning and only gave up three hits, one run, and had no walks on the way to his fourth win of the season
- Theo Hardy went 3-for-5 with an RBI single in the first and sixth innings, plus a double in the fourth inning
- Hardy extended his career-high in RBIs to 40 and also scored a run
- Dalton Bowling went 3-for-5 with an RBI single in the fourth inning and scored a run
- Bowling has an SJSU record 159 RBIs
- Bowling hit his 56th career double and is now the all-time SJSU leader in doubles
- Matt Spear hit an RBI single to make it 2-0 SJSU in the second inning and another RBI single in the third inning to make it 5-3 SJSU
- Spear now has 33 RBIs on the season
- Spear also threw out his 14th runner of the season trying to steal second which leads the Mountain West Conference
- Spear ended the day going 2-for-5 with a run scored
- Jared Lewis hit a two-run single to make it 4-0 SJSU in the second inning
- Lewis is up to seven RBIs
- Robert Hamchuk extended his career-best hit streak to 20 games and he is one away to tie for the fourth longest hit streak in SJSU history
- Hamchuk hit an RBI double in the sixth inning for his 37th RBI and 15th double this season
- Hunter Dorraugh had two hits and scored a run
- Nathan Cadena went 2-for-4 with a single, double and a run scored
- Sebastian Orduno scored a run
- All of New Mexico's runs came by home runs and none of the Spartans runs came by the long ball
- SJSU left 12 on base in the win
- The Spartans put runs across in the first four innings of the game
- SJSU had 15 hits on the day
UP NEXT: The Spartans will play [1] Air Force in the winners bracket on Friday at 6:00 p.m. from Tony Gwynn Stadium and it can be seen on the Mountain West Network.
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