ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The road to the postseason has always run through Albuquerque and Santa Ana Star Field as the host of the Mountain West Tournament. However, after finishing off a three-game sweep of Fresno State with a 7-4 win on Sunday, the road to the Mountain West title certainly goes through The University of New Mexico baseball team.
The Lobos, who are now 23-9 and 12-3 in the Mountain West, swept Fresno State, who dropped to 21-12 and 9-6 in the conference. The Lobos now head to a pair of mid-week road games at Santa Clara (Tuesday) and at San Francisco (Wednesday).
The Lobos, after a harrowing, heart-stopping and taxing 14-13 win in 12 innings on Saturday, needed a solid outing from starter Colton Thomson, and that’s exactly what they got. Thomson went eight innings, throwing a career-high 113 pitches. He allowed 10 hits and four runs, but he struck out nine and helped strand eight runners on base.
For a while it looked like Thomson might be a hard luck loser. UNM opened the scoring with a run in the third on a wild pitch. Fresno State took the lead in the top of the fourth when Nick Warren laced a two-out single to plate a pair of runners for a 2-1 lead. They moved it to 3-1 when Aaron Arruda homered in the sixth to make it 3-1, and folks had to wonder if UNM, which came back in the seventh, ninth and tenth innings yesterday, had another comeback in them.
They most certainly did.
UNM got five straight hits to open the bottom half of the sixth to take the lead for good. Luis Gonzalez opened with a double to deep right center, and then Jared Holley singled through the hole at short to put runners on the corners.
DeVito then came up with the outfield playing so deep, he dunked one in for a single to make it 3-2, with the gimpy Holley able to cross to third. Stajduhar then singled to tie the game at 3-3, putting the scuffling Jack Zoellner to the plate. Zoellner entered that at bat in an 0-for-14 slump, but had made three loud outs in his last four swings.
Showing bunt, he took a pitch, and then as only Ray Birmingham can do, he rolled the dice and picked up a seven. After showing bunt, Zoellner got the green light and hammered a 1-0 pitch to center for a single, scoring DeVito from second for a 4-3 lead. That ended the day for formerly undefeated starter Edgar Gonzalez and brought in closer Tim Borst. He quickly got two outs, but after hitting Scottie Graham, Dalton Bowers stroked a two-out two-run single for a 6-3 cushion, and UNM would never be in danger after that.
The Lobos tacked on a run in the seventh when Zoellner grounded to the pitcher but beat the play out, scoring a run, and then Fresno State got that right back on a two-out single by Jeremiah Burks. However, Victor Sanchez came in for the third straight game, and after allowing six hits in two innings on Saturday, he threw a perfect 1-2-3 inning with a pair of strikeouts to clinch his eighth save and UNM’s sweep.
After getting 22 hits yesterday, UNM managed just nine, but it was more than enough. DeVito went just 1-for-4 to lower his season average to .438, but he added his 48th RBI of the season, hit .579 for the week with three home runs and eight runs batted in.
NOTES: The Lobos earned its second Mountain West home sweep of the season, having also swept San José State … UNM is now 10-0 in the opening two games of MW series, and 2-3 on Sunday … Nearly lost in the craziness of Saturday’s game, UNM’s 55 at bats was the sixth-most in school history and the six home runs were tied for the fourth-most … UNM’s starting pitchers are now 20-5 on the season … Thompson allowed his first home run of the season … New Mexico received an intentional walk for the fourth time in the series on Sunday, after having just four in the first 29 games … UNM is now 11-4 at home and 11-4 on the road.