Early returns on Cal Poly baseball look good

Kyle Smith has been a steadying influence for Cal Poly as the Friday night starter. By Owen Main

Before the season started, Larry Lee wasn’t totally sure about 2016. Where was his pitching? How had guys really developed over the offseason? Would the freshmen and inexperienced sophomores play like underclassmen?

Twelve games into the young college baseball season, Mustang fans have to feel good about the early returns. Cal Poly is 10-2 and have split four games vs. top-25 opponents (1-2 vs. UCLA, 1-0 vs. Michigan). They even got some votes in at least one top-25 poll this past week.

There’s a flip-side too. Pacific is probably not a very good team. USF is in their league both figuratively and literally. All of Cal Poly’s games have been played at home. UCLA out-scored the Mustangs 28-13 in three games, including a 19-0 Saturday night whitewashing. So what should we really think of this squad? For now, the early returns are good.

Pitching

Having junior Justin Calomeni available to come out of the bullpen has been a good plan for the Mustangs so far this year. By Owen Main

Sophomore Kyle Smith looks like he’ll be keeping the Mustangs in games. Smith doesn’t have dominating stuff, but has kept the Mustangs in both of his starts. Freshman Cam Schneider and sophomore Erich Uelman have both looked borderline dominant at times. Justin Calomeni seems to have assumed the Reed Reilly all-purpose role for now. Lots of guys have been able to throw and you kind of get the feeling that Lee has been able to get a decent idea of who he can trust while winning games at the same time. It’s not an easy feat.

Going on the road for a few weeks, Cal Poly now at least has some idea about where they stand and must have at least some confidence in a few guys. I think that’s more than Lee could say before the season started.

Hitting

Cal Poly’s consistent lineup has probably been the most stable thing. It seems like they’ll be able to score some runs, one way or anohter. Seniors John Schuknecht (2 home runs) and Brett Barbier (.432 average) spent the summer in SLO and have been big contributors. Along with them, five underclassmen — Alex McKenna, Josh George, Kyle Marinconz, Josh George and Michael Sanderson — are hitting over .300. Schuknecht has 18 RBIs. Sanderson has had a solid start and plays an athletic third base. Kevin Morgan was the hero on Tuesday night when he singled home the winning run and Cal Poly is taking advantage of other teams’ mistakes while trying to minimize their own.

If they continue to average almost seven runs per game, this team will be feeling pretty good.

Defense

Kyle Marinconz seems to be earning the shortstop job. By Owen Main

Fielding the ball is probably Cal Poly’s Achilles heal right now. They made 16 errors in their first 9 games. Shortstop still isn’t completely figured out, but it looks as though Kyle Marinconz is tightening his hold there. On Tuesday, Kyle Marinconz played shortstop with Smith at second. Marinconz and Brett Binning were the double-play combo of choice in the USF series. It’s clear that Lee is still trying to mix and match to find a combo that works. If Cal Poly can get to the point where they average an error or less per game for a long stretch, that would be a huge improvement and help their pitching staff out a lot moving forward.

For context, last season the Mustangs made 63 errors in 54 games. The season before that, when they hosted the regional: 51 errors in 59 games. Through 12 games this year, they’ve committed 19 errors.

Looking ahead

After finishing their 12 game home stand 10-2, Cal Poly hits the road for a season-long 10-game road trip. How they fare against the likes of Grand Canyon, Sacramento State, and Wichita State will go a long way toward knowing how legitimately scary this team can get going into conference play.

One of the wonderful things about college sports is that, at any given time, opportunities for teams abound. Cal Poly has put itself in a position to have a very successful pre-conference season. There are still some questions. At least for now, though, we have a few answers. This team is capable.

Find all the photos from most of the Mustangs’ early games here.