IRVINE, Calif. --- UC Irvine baseball tussled with another Big West title hopeful, Cal Poly, Thursday night in Anteater Ballpark with the long ball breaking up a pitcher's duel as UCI won the opener, 7-1.
MOUND PRESENCE
The stage was set Thursday night with a pair of stellar aces going at it in
Nick Pinto and Drew Thorpe. Pinto was searching for his first win after some hard luck on the season, and calmly worked a 1-2-3 first inning.
Thorpe came into the night tied for the nation's lead in strikeouts to go with a spotless 5-0 record. Aside from a couple pitches that were mistakes, he handled most of the Anteater lineup getting nine of the first 10 hitters out, and working in nine more strikeouts in his six innings of work.
Pinto wavered at times including issuing four walks on the evening, but made the pitches when they counted going seven strong innings with one pitch he'd like back with a fourth-inning Brett Borgogno home run. Pinto scattered three hits and struck out seven to finally get his first win of the season.
"I felt good, I felt ready today, and my changeup was a lot better than it's been in the past, so it was nice having three pitches to work with." Pinto had been saddled with a slew of no-decisions despite tossing quality outings including his fourth quality start tonight out of the seven the program has recorded this season. "I was just treating tonight like any other game, but it's definitely awesome watching Torres hit balls out like that. I missed the second one, but it was nice to see the numbers on the board and that's all that matters."
LAUNCHING PAD
The other story of the night was
Justin Torres and the big fly. The Anteaters (21-11, 9-4) were coming off a six-homer week on the road last week and it continued Tuesday as Torres hit another home run in the win giving him two in the last three games.
He strode to the plate in the first with nobody on and two outs and promptly cut into the pitcher's duel very early with a no-doubt shot to right-center field and a 1-0 lead. His next time up he had a runner on first base and lifted one a little more to straightaway right field, but deposited it over the fence again to give him his fourth home run in the last four games. Both homers gave a big jolt to the squad untying the game in each instance. Torres also has quickly overtaken the team lead in round-trippers hitting his first just over three weeks ago and now with five in the midst of a 17-game hitting streak.
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FINAL SCORE: UC IRVINE 7, CAL POLY 1
Pinto's pitching did a lot of the heavy lifting, but the offense continued to add on and put the game away. They drove Thorpe from the game after six innings for not only his first loss of the season, but only the second time and first since the opening weekend that he did not pitch into the seventh inning.
UCI jumped on reliever Kyle Scott getting four singles out of the five batters he faced with
Woody Hadeen and
Taishi Nakawake each singling through the left side to drive in runs and open the score up to a 5-1 lead after seven innings. UCI pushed across a seventh run in eighth after the first five hitters reached base, but a couple of outs on the basepaths delayed any actual scoring until
Ben Fitzgerald was hit by a pitch to force home the final run.
Torres led the offense with his first career multi-home run game, the 47th in program history, and coming off the heels of the six UCI registered in 2021 complete with his three RBIs.
Woody Hadeen returned to the lineup with a bang smashing three hits with an RBI, run scored, and his 11th stolen base to boot.
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Pinto returns to .500 over his career now 9-9 after going 11 starts and 12 outings overall between wins.
Gordon Ingebritson wrapped up the win with two scoreless innings at the end.
The series continues Friday with game two pitting
Michael Frias and Travis Weston against each other like they did in game three of the 2021 series.
Postgame Thoughts from head coach Ben Orloff
"I think that was a complete game in all facets. On a game one of a series, you've got to get a really good start, and Pinto certainly gave that to us. Especially when you're facing a guy like Thorpe where runs are going to be hard to come by, you really have got to keep him off the board. So he was great, Gordon was really good as usual, and I thought we took good at-bats and that got Thorpe out of the game and Pinto is still pitching, we play from ahead, you don't have to face the other team's closer, the offense got a chance to add on, it was a really good win."
"Nick is about the right things. I'm sure he wants to have more wins, but I don't think it bothers him as much as it might others. But great for him to get it and throw against a really good team. He's who he is and that's a good matchup against Cal Poly; he threw the ball good against them last year, too, and he keeps being really good."
"In games like this, you need your best players to play really well. Torres certainly was that for us tonight. Up and down the lineup, we weren't getting the results of Thorpe, but getting him out of the game after six when he's gone seven in every start but one. We wanted to make sure their bullpen had to get 9-to-12 outs and we did that and with a lead. That couldn't have gone better for us."
