Do not sleep on the Dirtbags just yet, after going 4-1 vs. the nation’s best in recent weeks, CSULB has the Big West Conference in an uproar.
For the second time in three weeks, the Long Beach State Dirtbags have tangoed with the nation’s top teams – taking two of three against the UCLA Bruins and now opening up a home stretch with #17 UC Santa Barbara. The Dirtbags took 2 of 3 from UC Santa Barbara and it is beginning to look like the series win over UCLA was not a fluke. As a fan it is quite understandable to ask yourself, “Where has this team been all season?”
With an 18-19 overall record – a quick glance at the Dirtbags would lead you to believe they are nothing more than mediocre – for the most part you would be absolutely correct. But with sports being heavily based on a – what have you done for me lately – type on dissecting, CSULB has been far from mediocre over recent weeks. After pulling out a 3-2 win on Friday night at Blair Field, Long Beach State came back with probably the best outing of the season – a 1-0, 5-hit shutout over the Gauchos. It very well may be too-little-too-late for the Dirtbags too break their 15-year College World Series drought but one thing is for sure the door has not been shut just yet.
Saturday’s 2-1 loss was the 17th 1-run game CSULB has been a part of this season – second in as many nights – but what earlier in the year was resulting in losses, Thursday and Friday night it finally came together and brought their record in one-run games to 8-8, before the loss Saturday.
Senior Josh Frye was nearly flawless in Friday night’s win. In his fourth career start as a member of the Dirtbags and making his first start in front of his hometown crowd at Blair Field – Frye put together his first ever complete game shutout and ran his scoreless innings streak to 25. The senior improves to 3-0 on the season and his emergence could not have come at a better time. For nine innings last night, you could not tell who was the Top 25 team and who was playing .500 ball. UC Santa Barbara never set foot on third base while facing Frye and only reached second base twice – a hit-and-run groundout and double by Tyler Kuresa (UCSB).
From the plate, senior Ino Patron added three more hits on his illustrious career at Long Beach State. The 3-4 performance was career hits 203, 204 and 205 moving himself up the ladder for eighth all-time at CSULB.
Long Beach State fell just short of the sweep Saturday afternoon against UC Santa Barbara and even if taking 2 of 3 from the Gauchos turns out to be meaningless, at least the Dirtbags are establishing a late season identity.
The pitching staff is coming together with Frye and Andrew Rohrbach being a killer 1-2 punch along with the breaks going for the Dirtbags and not against them. The season is far from over but is only a couple tough outings from being a 2015 preview. After wrapping up the series with UC Santa Barbara, the Dirtbags make a quick midweek trip to the University of San Diego for a turn-a-round one gamer – that is when things get real. An 8-game home stretch that will see #4 Cal Poly (30-5) followed by #23 Cal State Fullerton (18-13).
CSULB has been playing Omaha worthy as of late and over the next couple weeks the outlook of their fate in 2014 will be much clearer. I wouldn’t say go all-in on the Dirtbags just yet, but don’t take your eye off of them either.
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