How do I know summer is really here? It’s usually when the SLO Blues kick-off their home schedule. 

This season is already two weeks old for the Blues, who have started the season 6-1 after their Sunday afternoon win over the SoCal Halos. 

Cooper Benson looked good on Saturday night. By Owen Main

The Blues schedule includes 36 home games throughout the summer. Two of those are fireworks games. This week, the team takes to the road for the first time this year against the Conejo Oaks. Over the weekend, they’ll return home to play three against the San Francisco Seals Friday through Sunday. 

The first fireworks game is July 3rd and the final one is July 21st. Tickets are just $8 and children 12 and under are free. 

Local as they come

With players still coming in from all over the country, the Blues often have to use some talented local players and this year is no different. Junior (high school junior) left-handed pitcher Cooper Benson, an Arizona State commit, started for the Blues on Saturday night and looked solid against an all-star team from the local men’s league. 

Other local players have joined or will join the club as soon as school is over. Some local players include Dan Beavers (RHP, Morro Bay High School, Chico State), Renn Duncan (C, Mission Prep, Westmont), Andy Garretson (1B, Templeton High School, Cal State San Marcos), Nathaniel Javine (C, Atascadero High School, Oregon Tech), Jeremy Jess (RHP, San Luis Obispo High School, Pomona-Pitzer), Mac Lardner (LHP, Templeton High School, Gonzaga), Jake Niezen (RHP, San Luis Obispo High School, Western Carolina), and Robbie Silva (1B, Arroyo Grande High School, San Francisco State). 

Part-time local players include Benson (SLO High School), Steven Chippman (Cuesta), Noah Cracknell (SLO High School), Connor Maydole (IF/C, SLO High School, Cal State Monterey Bay), Marco Murillo (P/IF, SLO High School, Lewis and Clark), Nick Pagan (Cuesta), Hunter Reade (Cuesta), and Justin Wear (Cuesta).

Cal Poly players include catcher Myles Emmerson, pitchers Craig Colen, Austin Dondanville and Bobby Ay, and incoming freshman infielder Tate Samuelson from Serra high school in San Diego. Current Mustangs will start playing summer ball once their school year ends with finals the week of June 12th.

Photos by Owen Main. For more photos, click here. 

Incoming Cal Poly freshman Michael Clark was throwing, according to a few people I talked to, in the low 90’s last weekend. By Owen Main

For local college baseball fans, this weekend was an opportunity to see five players from next year’s roster compete on the same field.

The San Luis Obispo Blues’ roster boasts four of Larry Lee’s players: senior, John Schuknecht; senior, Brett Barbier; incoming freshman pitcher, Bobby Ay; incoming freshman pitcher, Nigel Ward. This past weekend, the Blues hosted two Cal Poly pitching prospects who were part of the Menlo Park Legends’ roster. They were Michael Clark and Thomas Triantos.

Friday night, Schuknecht and Barbier both started for the Blues. When Clark got in the game for the Legends, the first batter he faced was Barbier. Triantos pitched two solid innings on Saturday for Menlo Park and Ay started Sunday’s game for the Blues with Larry Lee in the crowd looking on.

Barbier talked with me about how the summer was going and what it was like to catch some of the incoming freshmen right now. Click here to listen to our conversation. 

I gues it’s kind of like spring training — if spring training were seven months before the season started and if not all the players were on the same team they’d be on later.

OK, fine, it’s probably not a lot like spring training, but maybe it’s the closest thing a die-hard college baseball fan in this county will find. For Cal Poly baseball fans in SLO, last weekend was a good one.