April 29, 2018
SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego State baseball team completed a three-game sweep of UNLV on Sunday afternoon and extended its season-best winning streak to five after defeating the Rebels, 4-2, at Tony Gwynn Stadium. SDSU improves to 30-14 (13-7 Mountain West) on the year, while UNLV drops to 29-17 (10-11 MW).
Jorge Fernandez, who entered his start on Sunday with a streak of 10 consecutive scoreless innings, picked up right where he had left off last week, holding UNLV scoreless for the first five innings of the game. After Fernandez allowed a leadoff single to start the game, the right-hander struck out each of UNLV's next five batters and did not allow a hit to each of the next eight hitters he faced.
The Aztecs broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the fourth, as Chase Calabuig kickstarted the rally with a leadoff walk and a stolen base in the ensuing at-bat. Jordan Verdon drove home Calabuig with a hard-hit single through the middle of the infield before Julian Escobedo and Chad Bible both hit RBI doubles to finish off SDSU's three-run fourth inning.
Fernandez ran into his first jam in the sixth as a leadoff walk and a one-out single gave the Rebels a pair of runners on early in the frame. Adrian Mardueno took over on the mound after Fernandez loaded the bases with his second walk of the game and allowed a pair of runners to score on an RBI single by Max Smith and a groundout to third base by Nick Ames.
However, Mardueno limited the damage in the sixth inning, striking out Jack-Thomas Wold with a pair of runners in scoring position to prevent the potential tying and go-ahead runs from scoring.
Aside from the pair of inherited runners scored, the SDSU bullpen was close to perfect, with Mardueno posting 1.2 innings of one-hit relief while Casey Schmitt allowed just one hit over the eighth and ninth innings to earn his seventh save of the season.
Calabuig, Escobedo, and Bible led SDSU with two hits an one RBI each.
NOTES
- San Diego State extended its winning streak to a season-best five games and has won eight of its last nine games.
- SDSU has outscored is opponents 38-9 over its five-game winning streak. SDSU is also hitting .345 as a team, owns a 1.80 team ERA and a .995 fielding percentage over the current winning streak.
- SDSU finishes its season series with UNLV having won five of six meetings against the Rebels. SDSU is 11-4 in its last 15 contests vs. UNLV.
- SDSU has scored 123 runs in its last 12 games against UNLV, good for a 10.5 runs per game average.
- San Diego State completed its first home sweep of UNLV since May 20-22, 2010. The Aztecs have swept the Rebels twice on the road since that point (once in 2012 and once in once in 2015).
- UNLV, which entered the series fourth in the country with a .318 batting average, was held to just a .223 batting average over this weekend's series.
- The San Diego State bullpen has allowed just one run and seven hits over its last 20.1 innings pitched, good for a 0.44 earned run average and .106 opponent batting average.
- San Diego State won its 77th consecutive game when leading after eight innings.
- Chase Calabuig reached base in his 46th consecutive home game, extending the Tony Gwynn Stadium record.
- Chase Calabuig posted his third consecutive multi-hit game, extending his team lead of 21 multi-hit games this season. Calabuig also rides a 14-game on-base streak, good for the longest active streak on the team.
- Jorge Fernandez saw a streak of 15.1 scoreless innings come to a close. After starting the season as SDSU's closer, Fernandez has fit in nicely to the SDSU rotation, owning a 1.17 ERA, 2-0 record, .175 opponent batting average and 15 strikeouts in three starts.
- Casey Schmitt logged his second save of the weekend and extended his scoreless innings streak to 17 innings and scoreless appearance streak to 11. Having not allowed an earned run to score since March 17, Schmitt owns a 0.39 ERA for the season, the lowest by an Aztec (minimum 10 IP) since joining the Mountain West in 2000.
- Schmitt has allowed one or zero hits in 12 of his 15 appearances this season. Schmitt has not allowed more than two hits in any outing this season.
- Julian Escobedo reached base in his 16th consecutive Mountain West game, good for the longest active streak on the team and one shy of the longest MW streak by an Aztec this season (Hensley).
- In SDSU's six regular-season meetings with UNLV in 2018, The Aztecs outhit UNLV, 77-56, and outscored the Rebels, 54-27. Chad Bible posted a team-best .542 batting average (13-for-24) with nine runs scored, three doubles, three home runs and 10 RBIs over those contests.
UP NEXT
SDSU hosts UC Riverside on Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. Logan Boyer, who began the season as SDSU's Friday night starter, makes his return from an injury suffered on February 23rd in his third start of the season.