Riverside—The UC Riverside Baseball Team concludes its five-game home stand this Tuesday, April 18, with a 6 pm PT first pitch against San Diego State. Big West play resumes over the weekend as the Highlanders travel to CSUN for a three-game series against the Matadors.
UCR (13-18, 2-7) is coming off of a 1-2 weekend against Hawai'i. The Highlanders' 9-2 victory on Friday over the Rainbow Warriors (
box score/
recap), snapped an eight-game losing streak.
Colby Schultz has been the team's hottest hitter of late, upping his average to .313 over the weekend. In Big West play, the shortstop is hitting .424/.486/.606. Cade Peters broke out of a bit of a slump in the Hawai'i series, going seven for 10 over the final two games, and upping his average 40 points to .317.
Mark Contreras remains UC Riverside's top batter with a slash line of .368/.435/.487. He also brings a nine-game hitting streak into the week, which is tied for the longest such streak by a member of the Highlanders this season.
Freshman Connor Cannon clubbed two home runs over the weekend, and is tied for the Big West lead in that category. His 24 RBIs are fifth in the conference.
Angel Landazuri (1-2, 7.04) gets his fourth start of the season, Tuesday. The right-hander has worked exclusively out of the bullpen over the past month. Although he didn't factor in the decision, Landazuri tossed six innings of five-hit, one-run baseball in the Highlanders' 3-2 victory over UCLA on February 21 (
box score/
recap).
San Diego State is 26-11 on the season, including 12-5 in Mountain West play. The Aztecs have won 10 of their last 12 games, and outscored UNLV 36-9 over the final two games of their three-game series against the Rebels last weekend.
They are also 6-1 against Big West competition this year, with perfect records over Cal State Fullerton (1-0), Long Beach State (2-0) and Cal Poly (3-0). The Aztecs lone loss to a Big West foe this year was a 7-5 decision at UC Irvine on February 21.
SDSU is hitting .318/.397/.485 as a team, ranking them 12th, 26th and 14th in the nation in those three categories. All but one of the team's regulars is hitting better than .300 on the season, and the Aztecs are led by Tyler Adkinson, who is hitting .392/.504/.794 on the year. He ranks 36th in the nation in batting average, 12th in on base percentage, and seventh in slugging percentage.
San Diego State sends right-hander Harrison Pyatt (1-2, 7.91) to the mound Tuesday for his fourth start of the season. He has 19 strikeouts in 19.1 innings this season, but has allowed 30 base hits, and a .353 opponent batting average. As a team, the Aztecs have an ERA of 3.35, and are allowing less than a base hit per inning. CJ Taylor has nine saves on the year for San Diego State, which is tied for 13th in the country.
The Highlanders are 24-41-1 all-time against San Diego State (
view results), and took both games against the Aztecs last season—3-2 on March 22 (
box score/
recap) and 8-3 on May 17 (
box score/
recap).
