ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Tyler Stevens threw a complete-game gem and the Lobos blasted four home runs as the University of New Mexico baseball team used a six-run first inning to pull away from San Jose State 11-1 Friday night at Santa Ana Star Field.
The right-hander Stevens retired 15 straight and 17 of 18 at one point on his way to a four-hit performance – the third complete game of his career and first since the junior’s freshman season. He finished with eight strikeouts and one walk on 105 pitches.
“Myself and (pitching coach Ken Jacome) realized they were sitting on my offspeed stuff,” Stevens said. “You could tell with them taking fastballs or being late on them that we had to go with that pitch to be successful tonight.”
UNM coach Ray Birmingham was pleased with the effort from Stevens, but said there is still room to grow for the Lobo ace.
“He pitched well tonight, but he still fell behind a bit 2-0 in the count,” Birmingham said. “But it’s great to see Tyler pitch like that and give us a game where we can rest our bullpen. We both know that he can sharpen a few things – but that’s a good sign when you know that and still toss a four-hitter.”
Stevens got all the runs he’d need – and then some – in the first inning with Gonzalez leading things off with a home run to right field to put the Lobos (9-3 overall, 4-0 Mountain West) up 1-0.
Fellow preseason All-American Carl Stajduhar followed an out later with a solo homer to right-center field to give the Lobos a 2-0 advantage over SJSU (6-6, 2-2).
Jack Zoellner and Andre Vigil followed with singles before Jared Mang hit an RBI single to center to make it 3-0. Beau Capanna and Daniel Herrera each hit RBI singles before Gonzalez capped off the scoring with an RBI double to give the Lobos a 6-0 advantage.
The Lobos scored two more in the fourth on home runs from Gonzalez (his second of the game) and Jack Zoellner (his team-leading seventh on the season), two more in the fifth on Herrera and Danny Collier RBI singles and one in the eighth on a Zoellner RBI double that hit near the top of the wall – just missing his second homer of the game.
Gonzalez finished 3-for-5 with two homers and three RBI for the Lobos, Zoellner went 3-for-4 with a home run, double and two RBI and Stajduhar went 3-for-4 with a home run as seven of the Lobos’ nine starters finished with multiple hits.
While the Lobos racked up 19 hits, Birmingham said there is still plenty of room to improve.
“We got a few things going on I don’t really like that we need to improve,” Birmingham said. “We left too many runners on third base for instance. We’ll get back to work tomorrow morning, but we better be ready. San Jose State is going to come out hungry and isn’t going to quit. They are going to scratch and claw until the final out.”
Josh Nashed – who entered the game with a 1.59 ERA – got the loss, going 4.1 innings and giving up 10 runs on 14 hits with one strikeout and one walk.
The Lobos and Spartans play again 2 p.m. Saturday at Santa Ana Star Field. UNM is going with Johnathon Tripp (1-0, 5.62 ERA) while San Jose State is going with Matt Brown (1-2, 4.80 ERA).
NOTES
- This was Stevens’ first complete game since defeating Air Force 13-1 in a seven-inning, run-rule shortened game against Air Force in the Mountain West Tournament (where the run rule is in play) on May 20, 2015. It’s his first nine-inning complete game since tossing a one-hit shutout against Air Force April 12, 2015.
- This was Gonzalez’s second career multi-home run game. He hit two home runs against Wichita State his freshman year April 25, 2015.
- Beau Capanna extended his hit streak to a team-best seven games.
- In the Lobos’ four Mountain West games, they are hitting .494 as a team (87-for-176) with eight home runs, 22 doubles and 70 runs – an average of 17.5 runs per contest.