ON TAP: The Titans returned to the top spot in one of
the national polls (Collegiate Baseball) and remained in the No. 2 spot
in the others as they are came off a 3-1 week having beat UCLA (midweek)
and UC Irvine (two-out-of-three in conference series) last weekend. Fullerton
dropped a lopsided affair 13-6 against the 10-17 LMU Lions on Tuesday
night in a midweek tune-up before the conference series with CSUN. Northridge
is currently amidst a 4-game losing streak having dropped all four games
to Cal Poly, three of which were conference games. Fullerton has dropped
six of its last twelve games and are looking to find the offensive rhythm
that got them to the top spot in the nation two weeks ago.
PRIOR MEETINGS: Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Northridge
have met 44 times since 1975 with the Titans holding a 30-14 advantage
over the Matadors. Fullerton is currently riding a six-game winning streak
dating back to Apr. 12, 2003. The two squads have never met in post season
play. Since becoming the head coach in 1997, George Horton has managed
the Titans to a 15-7 record over all and a 7-5 lead in Big West match-ups
(CSUN Joined Big West in 2001).
WELCOME BACK SERRANO: In good humor Titan Head Coach
wrote up two lineup cards prior to former Assistant Coach Dave Serrano’s
first game back at Goodwin Field. The new UC Irvine head coach received
a line up prior to the game that looked like this: Jose Mota 2B, Aaron
Rowand RF, Mark Kotsay CF, Phil Nevin 3B, Kurt Suzuki C, Tim Wallach 1B,
Mike Lamb DH, Reed Johnson LF, Shane Turner SS, Jason Windsor P...Serrano
got a good chuckle, and got the last laugh as the Anteaters walked awy
with the series opener.
FRESH FACE TO POW LIST: Freshman right-hander Wes Roemer
(Glendora, Calif.) was named Big West Conference Pitcher of the Week for
his performance last weekend against UC Irvine on Saturday night. Roemer,
in just his second start of his career, stepped right into the Saturday
spot (vacated by injured Ryan Schreppel) and took a shutout into the ninth
inning before allowing a run and giving way to reliever Vinnie Pestano.
Roemer scattered just six hits over eight complete innings while striking
out six Anteaters without surrendering a free pass notching his first
collegiate win. In his effort, Roemer held the opponent to a .206 batting
average and lowered his ERA to 2.00 on the year. Roemer joins teammates
Scott Sarver (Mar. 1) and Ricky Romero (Mar. 8) as the other Titans who
have earned recognition as Big West Pitcher of the Week.
1/1000th: Ronnie Prettyman relinquished his reign atop
the Big West batting leaders for the first time this season as his 0-for-1
performance Tuesday night dropped him behind Northridge’s Erik Hagstrom.
One thousanth of a point separated the two as Hagstrom goes into the head-to-head
battle with Prettyman this weekend leading .380 to .379.
ROMERO, ROMERO, WHEREFORE ART THOU RUNS, ROMERO? Junior
lefty Ricky Romero is on the lookout for some runs. In his last three
starts, Romero has tossed 23 innings and has struck out 22 despite picking
up three losses. Though he has given up an uncharacteristic 9 runs and
23 hits over that period, the Titans have scored just three runs behind
him hitting just .122 as a team versus Arizona, Long Beach and UC Irvine.
SEEING TRIPLE: Blake Davis is seeing triple. Over the
past seven games, the shortstop has knocked four triples including two
in back-to-back at bats against UC Irvine on Apr. 2. He also led off back-to-back
games with a three-base hit versus Long Beach State Mar. 25-26. Davis
now has 5 triples to lead the conference which is good for a tie for tenth
in the all-time single season record book.
POWER SERG: Sergio paced the Titans in their two victories
over the weekend versus UC Irvine as he collected five hits in eleven
at bats and led the team with a .455 average last week. Pedroza went 2-for-3
day on Saturday including a key three-run home run, his eighth of the
year to boost the Titans to a 5-0 lead over Irvine’s Justin Cassel.
The right fielder followed Saturday’s performance with a 3-for-5
day on Sunday, touching the Irvine staff for two doubles and his ninth
round tripper of the year (2nd in the Big West behind Pacific’s
Justin Baum). Serg added an additional 3-for-5 performance on Tueday in
the loss to LMU, making him 8-for-12 (.667) in his last three games. Pedroza
improved his batting average to .361(fourth in the Big West) and improved
his conference-leading .742 slugging percentage.
BASEBALL SINCE THE BIG EASY: Going into The series versus Tulane
on Mar. 11, the Titan bats were almost unstopable. Fullerton was 12-2
and were hitting .359 as a team with 13 HRs and 111 RBI. They were scoring
close to 9 runs a game and averaging almost 13.5 hits a game. In games
since returning from Louisiana, the Titans are 6-5 and have chilled the
offense considerably hitting just .268 with 5 HR and 54 RBI while averaging
about 9 hits and 5.3 runs per game.
SERIES BUSINESS: By dropping two of three to Long Beach
Mar. 24-26, Fullerton lost its first series of the season and broke a
streak of 12 consecutive series victories dating back to April 2-4, 2004
against who else...Long Beach State. The Titans have taken all three series
they have played against Top 25 teams this year (Stanford, Tulane and
Arizona).
The Titans have not lost a series to open up
Big West Conference play since March of 1997 when the lost to two-of-three
to Long Beach State at Blair Field. Since then they have compiled a 21-3
record on conference-opening weekend.
When was the last time the Titans have lost three consecutive series openers
you ask? Last year the Titans actually lost four consecutive series openers
(If you count the Kia Bash) With Ryan Schreppel losing to Arizona and
then Jason Windsor dropping three straight decisions to Houston, Oklahoma
and Texas .... Prior to that it has happened only twice since 1993.
GREENLEE’S PESTANO WATCH: Former Titan pitcher
and current Sports Information Director Mike Greenlee is on “Pestano
Watch” as current reliever Vinnie Pestano is chalking up the saves.
With five saves on the season, and one his freshman campaign, Pestano
is just one shy of Greenlee’s season-best seven in 1997. Pestano
could tie and pass Greenlee this weekend versus UC Irvine, knocking Greenlee
off of the media guide’s listing for career saves. But who’s
watching?
INJURY REPORT: The Titans lost another former freshman
All-American as Ryan Schreppel went down, joining teammates Dustin Miller
(shoulder) and Clark Hardman (Labrum) on the disabled list. Schreppel
who was having a dominant comeback season (4-0, 2.00 ERA, 31 SO, 45 IP)
injured his right knee covering first base Mar. 25 vs. Long Beach State.
The southpaw is due to be out from 4-6 weeks after undergoing arthroscopic
surgery to repair his meniscus on April 1. Schreppel missed two moths
of his freshman campaign with a similar injury. 2003 All-American Dustin
Miller will be out the entire season after undergoing shoulder surgery
to clean and tighten his right shoulder. He underwent the procedure in
November and will be out from six to nine months ... 2004 Freshman All-American
Clark Hardman will miss the rest of the season after undergoing surgery
to repair his right labrum (shoulder). Hardman injured the labrum sliding
head-first into third base at UNLV. Recovery time for Hardman is approximately
9-12 months..
LATE IN THE GAME: The Titan pitching staff has been perfect
at holding on for the win when leading after seven innings. Fullerton
is 18-0 when leading for the final three innings of the game ...The offense
on the other hand has only posted one come from behind victory when trailing
after seven, while losing seven times.
UNANIMOUS: The eight head coaches of the Big West Conference
teams have chosen Cal State Fullerton to take the conference title in
the annual preseason coaches poll. Cross-town rival Long Beach State was
listed as the unanimous No. 2. The two teams have finished one-two the
last two seasons with Long Beach winning the conference in 2003.
2005 Coaches Poll Results
1. Cal State Fullerton 64 (8)
2. Long Beach State 56
3. UC Irvine 45
4. Cal Poly 35
5. UC Santa Barbara 33
6. UC Riverside 29
7. Pacific 15
8. Cal State Northridge 11
( ) First-place votes
TOURNAMENT TALK: The Titans have made 26 NCAA Regional appearances
in their 30-year Division I history and have not missed the playoffs since
1991. Their 13-year run is the fifth-longest active streak in the nation.
Only Miami (32), Florida State (27), Clemson (18) and LSU (16) have longer
streaks. Fullerton has advanced to Omaha 13 times, with College World
Series titles in 1979, 1984, 1995 and 2004.
PREDICTIONS: Baseball America has looked into they Cal
State Fullerton will repeat as conference champions again in 2005 in their
annual conference preview. They have the Titans coming out on top with
Long Beach State and Cal Poly in tow, with all three teams heading to
postseason play. Junior lefty Ricky Romero’s name was thrown around
quite a bit as he was predicted to be Pitcher of the Year as well as on
of the Big West’s Top prospects in the 2005 MLB Draft. The preview
also named Titan freshman Jared Clark and junior Trevor Mortensen as Top
Newcomers to the conference with Clark as the Freshman of the Year. Juniors
Justin Turner, Danny Dorn, and Romero along with senior Ronnie Prettyman
were all predicted to make the all-conference team.
REPEAT OF 2004?: In a preseason survey of 160 Div. I
head coaches by Baseball America, 21 said that Cal State Fullerton would
repeat their 2004 performance and win the 2005 College World Series. The
Titans finished second in voting behind Texas who got 47 votes (almost
30 percent of the votes), including one from Titans skipper George Horton.
Stanford team came in third place with 20 votes.
WEARING RED WHITE AND BLUE: Junior Ricky Romero (East
Los Angeles, Calif.) went 3-1 with a 1.57 ERA in five starts as a member
of the 2004 USA Baseball National Team - helping the United States earn
a gold medal at the 2004 FISU World University Baseball Championships
in Tainan, Taiwan this past August.
RETURN of ROMERO: Preseason All-American Ricky Romero’s
14 wins in 2004 is tops among returning Division I pitchers. He is one
of only eight returners with 12 or more wins returning to help their team
in 2005.
CLASH OF THE TITANS: Juniors Ricky Romero and Ryan Schreppel
combined for seven scoreless innings and eleven strikeouts as the 2005
baseball team defeated the Titan Alumni 4-1 on Jan. 29 at Goodwin Field
... Romero looked sharp going four innings allowing only two hits, one
of which came from former teammate Kurt Suzuki in the third inning. Romero
also stuck out the first four batters of the game including Reed Johnson
(Toronto), Mark Kotsay (Oakland) and Aaron Rowand (Chicago White Sox),
all current Major Leaguers... Bobby Andrews and Danny Dorn both went 2-for-2
with Andrews knocking in one of the Four Titan runs. Freshman Jared Clark
added a two-run single in the seventh inning to solidify the 2005 squad’s
lead ... Other current Major Leaguers on hand were Phil Nevin (San Diego),
Mike Lamb (Houston) and Chad Cordero (Washington) who pitched a scoreless
ninth inning...
DID YOU KNOW?: The Titans have never returned to Omaha
the season following a national championship. In 1980, the team lost two
games to Gonzaga at the Regional at Tucson – host Arizona went on
to win the national championship that year ... 1985 Fullerton won the
PCAA South and had to meet the winners of the North – Fresno State.
Fresno took two games in a row to win the conference and the automatic
bid to the Regionals ... That 1985 team saw the likes of seven Major Leaguers
(Mike Schooler, Mike Harkey, Larry Cassian, Jose Mota, John Fischel, Shane
Turner, and Kevin Reimer)... The 1985 team also had the No. 2 all-time
passer in professional football history in pitcher Damon Allen. He is
the No. 1 passer in CFL history... The 1996 team started off the season
with a bang taking the first 34 of their 42 games before hitting an inexplicable
slump that saw them lose 12 of their last 19 games. They snuck into the
Wichita State Regional by NCAA berth but were eliminated with losses to
Wichita State and Deleware. That team had three major leaguers (Mark Kotsay,
Jeremy Giambi, and Mike Lamb)....Cal State Fullerton has also never made
it to Omaha three consecutive years. And with trips to Nebraska in 2003
and 2004 for the big dance under their belt, 2005 would mark the first
time any Titan team would have accomplished that feat.
