Cal Poly steals UCI’s thunder

IRVINE — Those eager to dismiss the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo baseball team as a pretender in the Big West Conference race this season may want to take a SLO, hard look at Friday’s performance against No. 17-ranked UC Irvine.

The Mustangs (19-17, 6-1 in conference) strengthened their position atop the Big West standings with a 5-4 victory before 1,280 at Anteater Ballpark.

The loss dropped UCI (24-9-1), which many had anointed as the team to beat after early conference series wins over Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State, two games behind the Mustangs.

The visitors got a solid start from sophomore right-hander Eric Massingham (three runs and three hits in 4 1/3 innings, and an even better relief effort from sophomore lefty Derrick Saito.

Saito, who came in with 42 strikeouts in 25 1/3 innings then fanned six in 4 2/3 to earn the win, surrendered a run in the ninth, but slammed the door to improve to 2-2.

UCI Coach Dave Serrano said his team was not ready to play from the outset.

“We came out passive, offensively, early in the game and we came out passive on the mound early in the game,” Serrano said. “Cal Poly was ready from the first pitch.

“We were kind of feeling our way into this game, rather than know there’s a team on the other side of the field that wants it just as bad. What our guys have got to get used to is, we have a bull’s eye on our backs. We’re not going to sneak up on anybody. Everyone wants a piece of us now, and [the Mustangs] wanted a piece of us more than we wanted a piece of them.”

Further, after winning 12 of their last 15 and eight straight series, Serrano tried to instruct his team against a letdown.

“It’s human nature and we talked about it all week,” Serrano said. You feel like you’ve climbed to the top of the hill and, sure enough, you can fall off the cliff, as soon as possible.

“My comments to the team before the game today were: ‘We’ve set the table, but we’ve got to stay hungry, because we haven’t eaten dinner. We’ll eventually eat dinner, then we’ve got to be ready to eat dessert. We had the table set, and now, it’s back to the drawing board. We’re going to continue to have to work hard and play every game to the fullest.”

Conversely, Cal Poly Coach Larry Lee said his players felt like they had something to prove after beating up on struggling Pacific and Cal State Northridge in their first two conference series.

“We haven’t seen too many good teams, and we have a lot of young guys and the game has sped up for them, coming out of high school,” Lee said. “It takes a number of games to feel comfortable at this level and some of our players are starting to feel like they belong and understand the differences at this level.

“Beating a ranked club and a team that just won series against Long Beach and Fullerton at their home ballpark — that has to help. But in the same breath, we need to put it behind us and understand that this game doesn’t have anything to do with the game [tonight at 6].”

Cal Poly scored four runs on five hits in the third against UCI starter Scott Gorgen, who fell to 6-2.

A Ben Orloff single drove in a run for the Anteaters in the third. An RBI groundout by Matt Morris and an RBI single by Aaron Lowenstein plated two more for the hosts in the fourth.

But though Gorgen settled down, allowing just one hit from the fifth through the eighth innings, Saito also shackled the UCI offense.

Cal Poly scored an insurance run in the ninth when Adam Buschini singled in Brent Morel with two outs, that proved to be the game-winner.

UCI left runners at second and third in the third inning and stranded runners at first and second in the fourth and the seventh innings.

Ollie Linton tripled with two outs in the sixth and was left holding the bag.

Francis Larson pulled a pinch-hit double into the left-field corner with one out in the ninth, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on Taylor Holiday’s sacrifice fly to left to end a 12-pitch at-bat.

Cal Poly shortstop Kyle Smith made a diving stab of Orloff’s liner to end the game.

Big West Conference

Cal Poly 5, UC Irvine 4

Score by Innings

CPSLO 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 1 - 5 9 1

UCI 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 1 - 4 6 0

Massingham, Saito (5) and Dorrell, Thomas (8); Gorgen, Azxelrod (9) and Lowenstein. W -- Saito, 2-2. L -- Gorgen, 6-1. 2B -- Smith (CP), Loder (CP), Larson (UCI). 3B -- Linton (UCI).