With a sudden flurry of errors, miscommunication, dropped pop flies, and two-out hits, the San Diego State Aztecs baseball team saw their season come to a sputtering conclusion.
The BYU Cougars scored two runs in each of the first three innings to take control, then took advantage of the Aztecs defense to thwart a late comeback, hammering SDSU 16-8 to eliminate them from the 2010 Mountain West Conference baseball tournament.
In two miserable games, SDSU (28-28) saw 6th seeded Utah and 4th seeded BYU combine for 28 runs on 35 hits against them. Ace starter Addison Reed coughed up an all-time personal worst 8 runs in 6 innings. Wednesday’s starter Corey Black lasted only 2 2/3’s with six runs allowed. The much-maligned Aztecs bullpen lived down to its reputation as well, giving up 14 runs in 9 1/3 innings.
Embedded soundbyte: Aztecs head coach Tony Gwynn on SDSU’s poor performance:
Of course, the Aztecs showed great hospitality as hosts, making their guests feel comfortable by committing six errors in two games (four on Wednesday) with at least five more misplays, mistakes or miscommunication that went unrecorded in the boxscore.
Head coach Tony Gwynn harbored no delusions about his pitching staff coming into the tourney, but he thought at least his team would be able to catch the ball and score enough runs to compete. Indeed, SDSU put a total of 14 runs on the board in two games, but their perplexing defensive collapse left the Hall of Famer vexed (embedded soundbyte):
The tone was set on Wednesday just minutes after the 11:02am first pitch in the graveyard of the MWC tournament, the early elimination game. Teams playing in “Game 3″ of the tournament bracket need to win six games in four days to claim the crown. It’s never been done before. Often, Game 3 comes down to which team wants to keep playing for another day.
BYU jumped on the Aztecs for two runs in the first when Black and catcher Chris Wilson failed to come together on a swinging bunt in front of the plate with two outs. While the ball was much closer to Wilson, Black instead came down off the mound and tried to make a long throw to first, which sailed down the right-field line. The batter Jonathan Cluff reached second base, and Brandon Relf came home to score the first of many Cougars runs.
Sean McNoughton then drove home the second of 11 two-out runs scored by BYU with an RBI single. McNoughton finished with three hits and two runs scored.
In the second inning, outfielder Brandon Decker and shortstop Ryan O’Sullivan failed to communicate on a one-out popup, which dropped over O’Sullivan’s glove for a gift double. It was one of two such balls to drop between the left fielder and the shortstop on the day.
Meanwhile, the usually potent SDSU offense again sputtered against a left-handed starter. Junior Mark Anderson, who came into the game with more walks than strikeouts, defied his profile against a patient Aztecs lineup by pumping in first-pitch strikes with regularity. Anderson shut out SDSU through five innings and finished with six hits and four earned runs allowed in six-plus frames, walking three while striking out four.
San Diego State finished the year 4-11 against lefty starters.
Of the six departing seniors in the 2010 class, second baseman Mitch Blackburn will be the most dearly missed. Blackburn finished his final college game 3-for-5, and his three-run homer in a five-run Aztec 7th inning propelled a comeback that pushed the Aztecs back into the game, trailing 10-7.
Unfortunately, Mitch could not escape the team’s defensive malaise. His error in the 9th opened the door for a two-out, six-run BYU rally which ended any hopes for a final SDSU rally.
Josh Chasse, another departing senior, homered and had four hits for the Aztecs, while Brandon Decker went 2-for-4 in his last game on campus. Kegan Sharp, Guy Willeford (who struck out to end the game) and Drew Leary also graduate.
Of the juniors on the team, both Cory Vaughn and Addison Reed expect to get drafted, and Matt Parker’s defensive prowess may get him at least a look from an organization or two in pro ball. How high either Reed or Vaughn go in the draft (and the money offered) is yet to be determined.
In the end, the 2010 baseball season was a lost cause from the start. The departure of Stephen Strasburg was expected, but when Tyler Lavigne signed as a 50th round draft choice with St. Louis, the Aztecs were left with only one experienced returning starter, Ryan O’Sullivan. Then O’Sullivan, after wowing scouts with a 95-MPH heater on his 3rd pitch of the season, was out of the game on his 11th pitch with an elbow strain and never appeared on the mound in a game again all year.
Addison Reed was converted from a closer to a starter, and while the move went well (8-1 regular season, 2.33 ERA), Reed was lost for three weeks with a broken pinkie finger on his throwing hand. He came back with two of his best efforts of the season, including a stretch of 20.1 scoreless innings. His last three starts were a different matter (22 IP, 30 hits, 15 runs, 10 ER, 7 BB, 22K, 4.09 ERA, 1.68 WHIP ).
Bryan Crabb was a highly effective freshman starter who had three different shutout efforts on the season, but when he went down after being hit by a line drive to the skull in BYU, not only was Crabb lost for the year, he was hospitalized for several days. Senior Drew Leary, another arm who provided innings in both starting and relief, also was hospitalized after a line drive to the groin and required season-ending surgery.
Gwynn and new pitching coach Eric Valenzuela never found a true replacement for Reed’s All-American presence last year in the bullpen, and no junior college transfer stepped forward in the manner of Lavigne to offer stability in the rotation or the ‘pen. No pitching, no trophies.
In addition, while the defense (before its bizarre turn for the worse this week) had turned the corner late, fielding the ball was a major issue for San Diego State all year, and they finished with 84 errors in 56 games. Many of those errors came early in the year when players were out of position due to injury, but many of them were just flubs and fundamental mistakes that confounded the team all year.
Of even greater concern is the fact that no freshman who joined the SDSU lineup in 2010 acquitted himself well with the glove at all, making you wonder what lies ahead for the defense. Major improvements will need to be made by Jordan Van Hoosier (if he can regain academic eligibility), Corey Black and Blair Moore if they are going to want to play in the field next year, and the Aztecs are going to have to find someone to replace Vaughn in center field if he bolts as expected for the pros.
On the bright side, sophomore Brandon Meredith took another solid step forward and was named a first-team all-MWC performer in the outfield, and Vaughn came on like gangbusters late, finishing the year on a 21-game hitting streak. Blackburn hit safely in 34 of his last 35 college games, and both sophomores Jomel Torres and Chris Wilson improved offensively. Wilson also worked himself into a decent third baseman, converting from catcher.
Embedded soundbyte: Gwynn is confident for what 2011 will bring:
The Aztecs should have a strong offense in 2011, with the junior class of Meredith, O’Sullivan, Wilson and Torres leading the way. There’s been a lot of talk about the recruiting class coming in on the mound, but once again experience will be lacking in that department, although Crabb and O’Sullivan should both in theory be ready to pitch next year.
San Diego State gets another chance to host the MWC baseball tourney in 2011. They can only hope that the home team will last more than 17 hours in the tournament next time around.
Craig Elsten -
Chainsaw -
