Riverside—The UC Riverside Baseball Team continues its eight-game home stand to open the 2016 season this weekend with four games at The Plex against Washington of the Pac-12 (
watch Drake Zarate's promo video for the series).
The Highlander split their first four games of the year against Kansas State, but got three stellar pitching performances out if their starters. Lefty Austin Sodders (0-1, 1.50) was the hard luck pitcher in a 1-0 loss on Friday (
box score/
recap) striking out eight in six innings while allowing just one earned run. He gets the starting nod this Friday as well.
Right-hander Angel Landazuri (1-0, 1.29) earned the win on Saturday (
box score/
recap) pitching seven innings of four-hit baseball in a 6-1 decision. He will start one of the two games this Saturday, while righty Ricky Delgado (0-1, 9.00) gets the nod in the other one. Right-hander Tyler Musgrave (1-0, 1.80), who made his first appearance UC Riverside since 2013 on Monday, scattered three hits in five innings of work to pick up his first win as a member of the Highlanders (
box score/
recap). He will take the mound on Sunday.
Cody Worden leads UCR with a 1,062 OPS thanks to a slash line of .300/.462/.600, while Aaron Cisneros has a team-best .357 batting average and five RBIs.
Washington took to two of three at Baylor to open its 2016 campaign hitting .305 for the series with a .421 team on base percentage. Three starters are hitting better than .400 on the season led by Josh Cushing (.600/.636/1.000). Jack Meggs (.500/.600/.833) and Kyle London (.417/.533/.500) also boast OPS's of better than 1,000.
Righty Noah Bremer (1-0, 1.50) gets the Friday start for Washington after allowing five hits and striking out six in six innings of work in his first outing of the year. Right-hander Joe DeMers (0-0, 1.80) gave up just one earned run in his first five innings of work on the year and is slated to start Game One on Saturday. Lefty Will Ballowe (0-0, 8) failed to record an out in his first start of 2016, walking all three batters he faced before being lifted in favor of a relief pitcher. He gets the start in Game Two on Saturday. Sunday's starter is TBD.
UC Riverside is 12-13 all-time against the Huskies (
view all-time results), but the teams haven't met since the 2008 campaign when they split their four games.
