San Diego, CA—The UC Riverside Baseball Team finishes up its eight-game road trip on Tuesday, April 19 with a 6 pm PT first pitch at San Diego before returning home this weekend for a three-game, Big West Conference series against Long Beach State.
The Highlanders (14-19, 3-3) snapped a four-game losing streak Sunday with a 5-3 victory at Utah (
box score/
recap). Keaton Leach tossed six innings of four-hit baseball in his first start of the season to pick up the win, while Vince Fernandez picked up base hits in each of the three weekend games against the Utes, hitting .455 for the series.
Fernandez remains UC Riverside's top offensive threat leading the team with a .348 batting average, a .434 on base percentage, and a .447 slugging percentage. Mark Contreras is also hitting better than .300 with a slash line of .306/.398/.414.
Right-hander Tyler Musgraves (2-0, 4.34) gets the start on Tuesday. It will be the senior's first appearance since March 22 when he went three innings and allowed two earned runs at San Diego State (
box score/
recap).
The Toreros (20-19) took two of three from Santa Clara over the weekend to improve to 7-8 in the WCC. They are sending righty CJ Burdick (0-0, 1.59) to the mound on Tuesday for just his second start of the season. The junior also has two relief appearances on his résumé this season, and has allowed just one earned run in 5.2 innings of work on the year.
San Diego's pitching staff brings a collective 5.24 ERA into the week, and is walking an average of 4.62 batters per nine innings. Teams are hitting .294 against the Toreros, and the opposition has benefited from 58 wild pitches, 44 hit batters and 12 balks this season.
Three San Diego regulars are hitting better than .340 led by Ryan Kirby and Bryson Brigman, both of whom are hitting .360 on the year. Kirby also leads the team with a .580 slugging percentage, while Riley Adams' .466 on base percentage is tops on the squad.
The Highlanders are 41-43-1 all-time against the Toreros (
view results), but San Diego has won the last four meetings between the clubs and eight of the last nine. The two teams square off against one another one more time this season when the Toreros travel to UC Riverside on April 26.
