Lobo Baseball – at Earl E. Wilson Stadium, Las Vegas, Nev.
When: Friday – 7:05 p.m. (MT); Saturday – 3:05 p.m. (MT)’ Sunday – 2:05 p.m. (MT)
Who: UNLV Rebels
GoLobos.com: Live stats, live stream, box score, postgame recap and stats
Video: All three games will be streamed on the Mountain West Network and links will be available at GoLobos.com
Mountain West Standings
| Place | School | MW record | Overall record |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | San Diego State | 14-4 | 27-11 |
| 2 | Nevada | 13-5 | 28-9 |
| 3 | New Mexico | 11-7 | 21-15 |
| 4 | Fresno State | 9-6 | 18-19 |
| 5 | Air Force | 8-10 | 16-19 |
| 6 | San José St. | 3-15 |
9-27 |
| 7 | UNLV | 2-13 |
15-20 |
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – Winners of five straight, the University of New Mexico baseball team will try to extend its season-best winning streak when it travels to UNLV to face the Rebels in a vital Mountain West series this weekend. The Lobos are just three games back of conference-leading San Diego State, which hosts the second place team in the MW, Nevada, this weekend. UNM has an excellent chance to make up some ground if it takes care of business against a struggling Rebels team.
That won’t be so easy, though, because UNLV is playing some of its best baseball of the season. The Rebels have won three of their last five, after dropping seven straight, including a win over No. 5 Arizona State. Their two losses during that stretch were also by just one run apiece. Also, UNLV is a much different team at home. It owns a 12-7 record at Earl E. Wilson Stadium, and UNM has struggled away from home, with just a 6-8 mark away from Lobo Field, and just 3-7 in true road games.
Like the Lobos, UNLV has been involved in a lot of close games this season. The Rebels are 5-10 in one-run games, including five losses in MW play, and are a very talented team. Junior center fielder and leadoff man Joey Armstrong is the reigning MW Player of the Week and leads the team with a .319 average. Senior designated hitter Dylan Ellis is hitting a whopping .405 in 74 plate appearances. On the mound Kenny Oakley is good enough to beat anyone in the country. Earlier this season the junior shutout the Nevada Wolf Pack 1-0 and struck out 11.
The Lobos will need their lineup to continue to produce the way it has for the last month (.320 team batting average since March 18) and also have their pitchers continue to perform at a high level (1.80 staff ERA over last 45 innings).
Against UNLV: After winning four straight and 11 of 13 from 2012-13, the Lobos have dropped five of their last six vs. UNLV, including a sweep in Las Vegas last season.
Series Record: 68-84
Home: 34-21; Away: 32-62; Neutral: 2-1
Up Next: UNM hosts Rio Grande Rival New Mexico State on Tuesday at Lobo Field before hitting the road to face Wichita State.
• SCOUTING UNLV … The Rebels have struggled through most of this season, but right now they are playing probably their best ball all year. After a seven-game losing streak they have won three of their last five, including one over No. 5 Arizona State, and the two losses in that span were by one run apiece.
Reigning Mountain West Player of the Week Joey Swanner leads the team with a .319 batting average, but he’s one of just four qualifiers hitting better than .294. Senior designated hitter Dylan Ellis is hitting a whopping .405 in 74 at bats, though. UNLV isn’t hitting for much power, either, as it is slugging just .362. That means the Rebels need to string together hits to put runs on the board, and is a large reason why they’re averaging barely over five runs per game.
The pitching staff, which had been a major strength in recent years, has also struggled a bit in 2015. They’re still striking out batters (254) and not walking many (110), but opponents are hitting .294 and slugging .419 against them. Friday-night starter Kenny Oakley has been one of the best UNLV hurlers this season, posting a 2.95 ERA and 40 strikeouts in 39.2 innings covering eight games and seven starts. Ben Wright will be making just his second start of the season on Saturday, but owns a 2.35 ERA, while D.J. Myers, Sunday’s starter, leads the team in both innings (53.2) and strikeouts (49).
• 1,600 AND COUNTING … Friday’s game against UNLV will mark the 1,600th game of head coach Ray Birmingham’s coaching career.
• LOBOS STARTING TO ROLL … Ray Birmingham is one of the best hitting coaches in the nation (and was the hitting coach for USA Baseball’s Collegiate National Team last summer) as evidenced by the Lobos hitting at least .312 in all but one of his years at UNM. This year, though, they got off to a slow start, hitting just .259 through March 18. In the 18 games since then, however, UNM is batting .320 and seven of their nine projected starters this weekend are at .319 or better during that span. Five (Chris DeVito, Danny Collier, Lane Milligan, Cory Voss and Jack Zoellner) have hit over .350 in that time.
• STAJ ON FIRE … Perhaps no Lobo is hotter than freshman Carl Stajduhar. After an 0-for-13 stretch lowered his season average to .250, he has six straight multi-hit games to push it all the way up to .295. He is 12-for-23 (.522) with six doubles, seven runs and eight RBIs during that stretch.
• THREE FOR ME … UNM had gone nearly five years without having a player record two triples in one game (since Alex Allbritton did so on April 18, 2010, against Coppin State), but two Lobos have pulled the feat this year. On Tuesday, March 10, freshman catcher Cory Voss did it in UNM’s 8-5 loss to Stephen F. Austin. Sophomore Andre Vigil followed suit and matched him in UNM’s 14-2 win over Grand Canyon on Tuesday, April 15. Voss has continued banging out three-baggers and heading into the series at UNLV he is 10th in the NCAA with five triples, which is tops among all catchers.
• STEVENS’ HISTORIC OUTING … Tyler Stevens had one of the best pitching performances in the last 40 years for the Lobos on Sunday, April 12. He allowed just one hit in a complete-game shutout of the Air Force Falcons. It was UNM’s first one-hit game of any kind since March 6, 1976. It was the first solo one-hitter March 25, 1973, and it was the first nine-inning one-hitter since April 15, 1965.
He faced just one batter over the minimum, did not walk anyone, and struck out a career-high four batters. He retired the final 16 Falcon hitters after an error in the fourth inning.
• STEVENS MW PiOW … It came as no surprise given his performance, but Tyler Stevens was named MW Pitcher of the Week on Monday, April 13 following his one-hit shutout of the Air Force Falcons. He was also named the College Sports Madness MW Player of the Week.
• COLLIER ON FIRE … Danny Collier started the season in a small funk, going just 1-for-11 over UNM’s first three games. Since then, though, he has just three hitless games He recently had a 16 -game hitting streak snapped in which he went 26-for-67 (.388). It was the longest hitting streak in the Mountain West this season.
FOLLOW MY LEAD … The Lobos have had their leadoff man reach in 127 of their 314 innings, good for an inning-starting OBP of .404.
• INJURED STARTERS … The injury bug has hit the Lobos hard this season, especially in the starting lineup. Sam Haggerty, who was an Academic All-American in 2013 and the second baseman on the All-MW Preseason Team has been out since March 7. Danny Collier, the MW Freshman of the Year in 2014, missed some time with an ankle injury. Colton Thomson, who was UNM’s Friday-night starter heading into the season, has been out since March 14. Drew Bridges began the season as UNM’s Sunday starter, but he has also missed time due to injury. Conner Rusch, who was expected to be a midweek starter for UNM this year, and could have seen time on the weekend due to injuries to Thomson and Bridges, has missed the entire season. Dalton Bowers and Jared Holley have each missed time in the middle infield.
• YOUNG LINEUP … The Lobos have one of the youngest lineups in the country, and it’s evidenced by the fact that 65 percent of their plate appearances have come from freshmen and sophomores, which is the eighth highest percentage in the nation. Right now UNM can expect to start just two upperclassmen — Aaron Siple in right and Dalton Bowers at short — and seven freshmen and sophomores.
• NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY … Speaking of youth, the Lobos current weekend rotation looks almost nothing like how the coaching staff drew it up before the season. The five Lobos that will start on the mound this week for UNM (Toller Boardman, Tyler Stevens, Carson Schneider, James Harrington and Luis Gonzalez) entered the 2015 season with a combined total of ONE Division I start, and that was by Boardman as a member of the Texas Longhorns back in 2013. Schneider made a UNM fresman-record 24 appearances out of the bullpen last season, but did not start a game, while Stevens, Harrington and Gonzalez were in high school. This year, however, those five have started 24 of UNM’s 36 games (66.7 percent) heading into the series at UNLV.