When a grounds crew member lost his footing, and took a dive while preparing the field 15 minutes before the Dirtbags were set to face Wichita State, many of the 1,141 fans at Blair Field chuckled and gave him a round of applause as he worked his way back to his feet.
Little did they know, it was a foreshadowing of what was to come for the Dirtbags (5-7) as their defense tripped and offense stumbled in an 8-0 loss to the Shockers (10-1) on Friday night.
“We are not playing good defense,” Long Beach State head coach Mike Weathers said. “I just told them that I’m real confused by our defensive play; how we shoot ourselves in the foot.”
The Dirtbags had three wild pitches and two errors collectively. They also made two more defensive miscues that cost the team at least two runs.
LBSU starting pitcher Drew Gagnon (2-2) took the loss despite dominating a Shockers offense that came in averaging 10 runs per game, for the first six innings. The sophomore gave up one run on three infield singles and struck out 11 during that stretch.
But the Shockers broke through in the seventh.
Wichita catcher Cody Lassley led off the top of the seventh with a line-drive single to center on the first pitch. Left fielder Travis Bennett then came up and laid down a sacrifice bunt to the right side.
Beach first baseman Steve Tinoco fielded it quickly and threw to second, but Lassley beat the throw. With runners on first and second, right fielder Ryan Jones hammered Gagnon’s 2-0 pitch over the right center field wall for a three-run home run to give the Shockers a 4-0 advantage.
“At that point, they had already seen him twice, so they make their adjustments. Jones sat on that thing 2-0,” Weathers said.
Gagnon then walked the next batter and gave up a one-out RBI-triple to center fielder Kevin Hall that spelled the end of his night.
Weathers brought in reliever Kenny Arnerich, who walked the first batter he faced and gave up a sacrifice fly that brought in the fifth run of the inning.
Shockers designated hitter Preston Springer extended the lead to 7-0 on a line drive up that went up the middle for a triple after center fielder Jordan Casas misread the ball and allowed it to sail past him. Wichita tacked on its final run in the eighth on a wild pitch by reliever Josh Corrales.
Gagnon pitched 6.1 innings, allowing five earned runs on five hits while striking out a career-high 12 batters.
“When you get a team like that, that can hit, they want to swing the bat, so you have a chance to strike people out because they are swinging at everything,” Weathers said. “I thought he was really good until it kind of fell apart on him in the seventh. Their guy answered too.”
Their guy was junior starting pitcher Tim Kelley, who shut down the Dirtbags offense for eight innings, allowing four hits and striking out four on 88 pitches.
The LBSU offense continued to struggle, stranding seven runners.
“We had our opportunities. That is what I just told them,” Weathers said. “We sac-bunted three times to get guys in scoring position and came up zip on all three.”
The Dirtbags and their offense will look to bounce back in the second game of the series on Saturday at 5:30 p.m.
Weathers said, “When you are not scoring a lot of runs and you are not hitting, those pitchers feel like they gotta do everything perfect. You never know for the psyche of a pitcher how that affects him.”