Not there, but close

By Eddie Hughes

Fresno State played some impressive baseball Friday night. Sunday night, it wasn’t so impressive.

But that’s just part of gaining experience. Until the young Bulldogs find that comfort zone the veterans have, the team will be hit or miss—literally and figuratively.

But, hey, it can’t be that discouraging to take one of three games against the No. 6 Stanford Cardinal. Afterall, Stanford is a perennial title contender and might be the best team Fresno State has to face all season.

But Bulldogs coach Mike Batesole wasn’t completely satisfield with winning 3-1 Friday night before losing the next two to Stanford—13-4 and 10-3.

“ I don’t know how much confidence you’re gonna get out of winning one out of three games,” Batesole said.

Confidence might not be oozing from the Bulldogs after the series, but, if nothing else, it does show the team what it’s capable of.

The Bulldogs’ win on Friday came against Stanford’s best pitcher—All-American Mark Romanczuk.

“ We’re not quite there yet, but we could be,” said Sunday starter Matt Scott. “Maybe in a couple weeks we might reach our potential but we could be there with [Stanford]. In a couple weeks if we play that team it’s gonna be a lot different.”

Scott, a junior, gave up six hits and three earned runs in two-plus innings Sunday. Sophomore Matt Garza gave up seven hits and six earned runs in three innings Saturday. But both pitchers came out sharp for the first two innings of their starts, giving up no runs.

“ That’s what we talked about before the season started,” Batesole said. “We’ve got a handful of guys in the bullpen that can get six outs. But finding three or four guys who can get 15 or 18 outs at this point—we’ve got some searching to do to find that.”

Apparently, the Bulldogs have already found at least one guy who can do that. Friday starter David Griffin threw seven and two-thirds innings of two-hit baseball.

“ It was a big learning experience for everybody,” Griffin said.

“ Almost everybody got in, got a chance to see what it was like—especially all the freshmen that we’ve got on the club, getting their first innings in and see what it’s like to throw at the D-I level.”

That’s the type of experience that can make the Friday-night Bulldogs show up every day of the week. If the team plays that well consistently, it will win games in bunches. And Griffin, for one, did pull some confidence from the season-opening series.

“ Oh yeah,” Griffin said. “We’re not where we’re gonna be in three or four weeks, but we’ll get there.”

And where is it that the Bulldogs will get to?

“ We’ll be able to keep the innings smaller so they won’t—hopefully—put up five or six runs in an inning,” he said. “That’ll keep the game closer and give our offense more of a shot at getting us back in the lead.”

The Bulldogs jumped out to early leads in all three games, but were able to hang on to a lead just once.

That tidbit of information would be worrisome if it were May right now, but it was just the first series.

The first series in a long season, where experience is sure to come.

And—Friday—we saw what this team is capable of becoming.