The road-woe bug bit the Mustang baseball team again. The team goes into tonight’s matchup with Fresno State at Baggett Stadium having dropped two of three games against Cal State Northridge this weekend.
The losses dropped the Mustangs to third place in the Big West, but thanks to a loss by conference-leader Cal State Fullerton, Cal Poly (21-13, 5-4) is just two games behind the Titans.
Rain on Friday forced the team to play a doubleheader on Saturday as the Matadors took the first game 6-5 in extra innings. Ryan Raslowsky drove a two-out pitch into left field that brought in Chester Pak who started the inning with a double.
The Mustangs then pushed the game into extra innings as they trailed by two runs going into the top of the ninth. Down to their last out, Tim Wise singled in pinch-runner Jordan Ellis to cut the Matador lead to one. Mitch Haniger followed Wise with a home run to left field to put Cal Poly up one run. Haniger leads the Big West in homers with seven.
Northridge then forced a run through against closer Chase Johnson who took the loss in the ninth to set up a walk-off win. Starter Joey Wagman went 6 2/3 innings, gave up eight hits and allowed four runs, all of which were earned.
In the second game of the Saturday doubleheader, the Mustangs notched their only win of the series on the back of starter Kyle Anderson. He threw seven innings, scattered six hits and gave up one run.
The Mustang bats drove in six runs to give Anderson his sixth win of the season, and he moved his ERA to 2.08, the lowest among Cal Poly starters and fourth lowest in the Big West.
Third baseman Jimmy Allen paced the Mustang offense by driving in two runs on two hits in four at-bats in addition to scoring two runs himself.
In the rubber game on Sunday, Cal Poly jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the second, but Northridge responded with a four-run rally in the bottom half of the inning and went on to sink the Mustangs 6-3.
Kyle Brueggemann’s record fell to 4-3 on the year after allowing five runs in 2 2/3 innings. He was relieved by Reed Reilly in the third; he went four innings and gave up a run.
Left fielder David Armendariz continued his hot streak going 3 for 5, including a double to improve his average to .320 on the season, but it wasn’t enough as Cal Poly left 15 runners on base.
The team takes on Fresno State tonight at 6 p.m in Baggett Stadium. Cal Poly is just 1-3 in midweek games this season. The Mustangs will travel to Fresno to play the Bulldogs next Tuesday as well.