April 20, 2012
SAN DIEGO, Calif. - In a game that featured 20 walks between the two teams, TCU held San Diego State to just three hits over the first eight innings and went on to a 6-1 victory in the opening contest of their three-game Mountain West baseball series Friday night.
With the win, the Horned Frogs (22-13, 10-3 MW) took sole possession of first place in the conference standings by a half game over New Mexico, which is not involved in Mountain West play this weekend. The Aztecs, meanwhile, saw their record fall to 18-22 overall and 7-6 in the league as they remained in third place.
Both starting pitchers struggled with control and it appeared to be contagious as the evening wore on. On the night, Horned Frog pitchers issued a total of 11 walks while the Aztec gave up nine.
Aztec starter Michael Cederoth would end up tossing six innings and allowing four runs on four hits with seven walks and seven strikeouts. Of the seven Horned Frogs he walked, four came in to score.
TCU's Andrew Mitchell also issued seven bases on balls over his 4.1 innings of work, but he surrendered just a single run while striking out five. He gave up only one hit in the contest, a double to Seby Zavala in the second inning.
Trailing 3-0, SDSU's lone run in the game came in the bottom of the fifth and was produced without the benefit of a base hit. After Mitchell allowed a one-out walk to Cody Smith, he was removed from the game in favor of reliever Brandon Finnegan, who proceeded to walk Greg Allen and Tim Zier before Chris Wilson's sacrifice fly to left brought Smith home with the home team's lone score of the evening.
Despite playing a major part in allowing the run, which was charged to Mitchell, Finnegan would go on to toss two innings and eventually be credited with the win to improve to 2-3 on the season. Kevin Allen, who came onto pitch for TCU in the eighth and got the visitors out of two-out bases-loaded jam, picked up his third save of the year. SDSU's Cederoth would take the loss to fall to 2-2.
Sophomore second baseman Tim Zier was the lone Aztec to record more than one hit as he notched a pair of singles and also reached base via the walk twice in his five plate appearances. Seby Zavala also had a pair of base on balls along with his double in four trips to the plate.
TCU and San Diego State will continue their series on Saturday (April 21) with a game scheduled to get underway at 6:00 p.m. at Tony Gwynn Stadium.