Cal Poly freshman Matt Jensen may have won the battle at the plate against Owls pitchers, but the Mustangs men’s baseball team couldn’t hold on to win the season-opening war against No. 3 Rice and dropped the contest 10-7 Friday at Baggett Stadium.
“It was exciting, it was my birthday so it was pretty fun coming out here and hitting against one of the best teams in the nation,” Jensen said. “You see where we stand, we compete with them and we’re right up there with them.”
Jensen, who debuted at second base, displayed a solid outing against tough Rice pitching with a 2-for-5 performance that yielded a homerun, and a double, on top of a walk and a trip to first on an error by Owls second baseman Brock Holt.
“Jensen had a real good first career first game, he played like a veteran tonight,” Lee said.
The Mustangs bounced back from an early 1-0 deficit and took a substantial lead in the third, but Rice pitching, which struck out nine and limited Cal Poly to five hits, shut down the Mustangs scoring after the third inning.
“Rice is a really good team,” Cal Poly coach Larry Lee said. “Their speed and their offensive lineup was pretty tough to defend.”
Rice got on the board in the first when Holt, who reached second on a Jimmy Comerota sacrifice bunt, scored on a Rick Hauge double down the third base line.
The Mustangs responded with two runs in the bottom half of the inning that started with two free bases. Leadoff centerfielder Ryan Lee was hit by a Ryan Berry pitch and then Adam Melker was awarded first after Rice catcher Diego Seastrunk interfered with his swing.
Adam Buschini laid down a bunt to advance the runners but ended up reaching base after the ball was overthrown to first, which also allowed Lee to score. Cal Poly’s second run of the inning came on a sacrifice fly by D.J. Gentile that scored Melker from third.
Rice responded in the second with an inning Cal Poly that sophomore starting pitcher Jared Eskew would probably like to forget. Eskew faced nine batters in the 49-pitch marathon of an inning that ended with Rice up 6-2.
Eskew managed to retire the side in the top of the third, which paved the way for a surge of Cal Poly scoring to regain the lead. The bottom of the third kicked off with one-out double from Buschini followed by a Wes Dorrell walk. Gentile reached base on an overthrow to first that allowed Buschini to score and Dorrell to advance to third.
Luke Yoder grounded out on the next play but picked up an RBI as Dorrell scored on the play and then Jensen cleared the bases with a three-run home run after Ricky Rossman reached by walk.
“It shortened the game,” Lee said. “That’s what you try to do against good teams.”
Eskew fended off Rice’s bats for the duration of his five-inning stint on the hill and gave up 10 hits, six runs and four walks, while striking out four.
Buster Mueller provided relief for Eskew in the sixth and walked three of the first four batters he faced, which gave way to a Rice run when third baseman Anthony Rendon hit a sac fly to score Holt with two outs to knot the score 7-7.
Rice regained the lead in the seventh when center fielder Steven Sultzbaugh hit a one-out solo shot over the left-center wall. Mueller walked the next batter, Steven Seastrunk, which prompted a pitching change to right-hand pitcher Mark DeVencenzi who got out of the inning.
DeVencenzi was pulled an inning later after giving up a single to Jeremy Rathjen that scored Comerota.
Mark Laugenour finished the game from that point and gave up the final run in the ninth.
In all, Mustang pitchers gave up 14 hits, six earned runs and walked eight.
“Rice barreled up a lot of balls early,” Lee said. ” Eight walks; you can live with the base hits but, unless you’re pitching around hitters in certain situations, you need to lessen the walks.”
With a double header on tap for today, the Mustangs’ bullpen, riddled by injuries, is facing some tough opposition that will put pressure on starters to pitch well into each game.
“In a double header, it’s really going to put it on the starters to go as deep into the game as possible without over-pitching them,” Lee said.
Lee said that playing a top-ranked team like Rice allots Cal Poly the opportunity to learn and improve.
“You learn from playing the better teams in the country, along with this game, after the weekend, we’ll kind of look at it as a whole and see what we need to do narrow the gap between the better teams in the country.”
Cal Poly closes its series with Rice today in a double header. D.J. Mauldin is slated to start the first game, which starts at noon, and Matt Leonard is the expected starter for the series finale at 6 p.m.