Grand Canyon stays undefeated, clinches series against Cal Poly

Once again, Cal Poly was in a close game in the middle innings. Once again, things didn’t go their way. The Mustangs have yet to be out-hit this season, but dropped their record to 1-5 on the young season.

It’s not that some players didn’t have decent games or make decent plays. This team just hasn’t been able to put anything together. It’s a story that’s becoming an all too-familiar one for the Mustangs and their fans.

Freshman lefty Kyle Smith struck out eight of the first nine batters he faced on Saturday night. By Owen Main

Freshman southpaw shines

Kyle Smith started strong, striking out eight of the first nine batters he faced. In fact, Smith didn’t give up a hit through his first four innings of work. In the fifth, Grand Canyon got to him for two runs on two hits and after a David Walker singled to start the sixth inning, he was pulled in favor of Danny Zandona.

Zandona also did a nice job in relief, giving up just a single unearned run in 3 1/3 innings. Speaking of the unearned run, Cal Poly’s defense once again was less-than-stellar.

Fielding woes

Grand Canyon’s go-ahead run was scored on a play that was ruled a sacrifice fly with an error. In truth, left fielder Kevin Morgan should have caught the ball, but the ball was deep enough that the run would have scored anyway.

Still, Morgan’s inability to catch the routine fly ball earlier in the game might have contributed to some miscommunication in the top of the ninth when he and shortstop Peter Van Gansen muffed a pop-up in short left field. Taylor Chris made the Mustangs third error when he threw a pickoff attempt into center field.

In all the Mustangs have now committed 15 errors in six games. They have committed fewer than two errors in just one of their games (when they had one). Even more maddening for everyone involved, the team has yet to be out-hit in any of their six games.

Baseball is great because there is generally a game very quickly after a win or a loss. For the past two years, players like Nick Torres, Brian Mundell, Mark Mathias, and Chris Hoo have showed high levels of resiliance. We haven’t seen that yet from this year’s Cal Poly team. Perhaps a cloudy, wet Sunday is a good day to wash away the first two games and salvage something out of the opening home weekend.

Photos by Owen Main