Cal Poly baseball prepares for nation’s hottest pitching staff — and then Big West

Coming off a Big West title and an NCAA Tournament appearance, Cal Poly baseball is back in action with high expectations.

A season ago, the Mustangs knocked off UC Irvine to claim the Big West Championship and punch their ticket to the NCAA Tournament.

Although the Mustangs fell in the Eugene Regional final against Arizona, the foundation of that core remains largely intact. But Head Coach Larry Lee has made one thing clear: Last year means nothing now.

“We have to create our own identity from a team aspect,” Lee said. “We made our team aware that this is this year’s team. It has nothing to do with last year, even though a lot of our players have some experience.”

That experience helps, but Lee has been clear that it guarantees nothing. He emphasized that every phase of the game must be sharper if this group wants to reach the same level and beyond.

Defensively, that’s been an early concern.

“We’re not very good defensively,” Lee said of his team, which sits at 4-3 after seven nonconference games. “We make too many errors.”

That’s a notable shift for a program that ranked among the nation’s top 10 in fielding percentage each of the past two seasons. Many of the same players are back, but the clean, consistent defense that defined recent years hasn’t shown up yet.

If there’s been any bright spot, it’s been on the mound.

In the home-opening series against Washington State last week, junior right-hander Griffin Naess delivered a statement outing Friday night.

Naess threw 71% of his pitches for strikes and struck out a career-high 14 batters, giving up one hit over seven shoutout innings.

His performance powered the Mustangs to their first home win of the season. He was later named Big West Pitcher of the Week for the second time in his career.

Cal Poly opened the series with back-to-back wins, leaning heavily on Nate Castellon and Alejandro Garza in the series opener. Castellon drove in three runs, and Garza added two, accounting for the bulk of the offense in the Mustangs’ 9-0 opening win.

The last two games of the series, however, showed how quickly things can unravel.

Lee pointed to sloppiness and missed offensive opportunities as the difference in the last two losses.

When the Mustangs needed a timely hit, it didn’t come.

Cal Poly’s struggles at the plate came at a challenging time.

In the third game, a close 4-3 game was put out of reach when the Cougars scored four runs off reliever Josh Morano in the eighth inning en route to an 8-3 loss.

Then Mustangs dropped the finale after giving up a one-run lead in the final two innings. Despite tallying eight hits, the team went hitless in three separate innings and stranded key runners in scoring position in a 5-4 loss and a series split.

In that game, Paso Robles High School grad Carson Turnquist was a bright spot as the starter, going four innings and giving up only one run on two hits.

Offensively over the first seven games, Garza leads the team with 13 hits, 7 RBIs and a .433 batting average to start the season.

Casey Murray Jr. is second on the team at .360, and both he and Castellon, who’s hitting .300, have nine hits each.

USC up next for Cal Poly baseball

An inconsistent Cal Poly team now faces a bigger challenge as it meets one of the hottest pitching staffs in the country.

The Mustangs are set to face undefeated USC in a four-game series starting Thursday.

USC’s Mason Edwards and Grant Govel rank among the national leaders in earned run average and are the only two pitchers in the country with at least 20 strikeouts without allowing a single run.

At 7-0 to start the season, the Trojans have given up two runs or fewer in five of their first seven games, including two shutouts.

“Their pitching staff is as good as any pitching staff in the country at this point,” Lee said. “If you look at their three starters, their numbers are elite.”

For a lineup still searching for timely hits, the margin for error narrows significantly against arms that haven’t shown many cracks.

Naess, who has typically opened the series for the Mustangs, is expected to take the mound in Game 2, according to Lee.

Against an opponent with elite arms, small mistakes will be magnified. Lee believes the difference will lie in whether his group can handle its responsibilities and sustain a high level of focus for all nine innings.

“It’s another opportunity for us to get better and show what we’re capable of against a high-level opponent,” Lee said.

Cal Poly was set to open the series Thursday at 6:05 p.m., followed by a 6:05 p.m. game on Friday, a 3:05 game on Saturday and a 1:05 game on Sunday. Tickets are available at ticketscalpoly.evenue.net.

After a home game against Pepperdine on Tuesday, Cal Poly opens Big West play at Hawaii on Thursday, March 5.