By snoadmin
RIVERSIDE –All it took was a road trip to discontinue the dominance that once seemingly defined the No. 9-ranked Long Beach State Dirtbags.
The club’s latest two losses dropped its Big West Conference opening series to 2007 conference champs UC Riverside (9-16 overall, 3-3 conference). After winning Friday’s opener 6-3, LBSU fell to the Highlanders 6-4 Saturday and 7-1 Sunday. The weekend setbacks dropped the Dirtbags (18-11 overall, 1-2 conference) to 1-8 on their season-long 10-game road trip that began nearly two weeks ago in Malibu when they fell to Pepperdine 7-5.
“This is a pretty bad team right now,” said a visibly disappointed head coach Mike Weathers Sunday. “I don’t normally call my teams out, but this is a bad team. We’re not playing LBSU baseball.”
The series was split coming into Sunday’s contest. Andrew Liebel pitched a complete game for the 6-3 win in about two and a half hours Friday night, but a seventh-inning Highlander rally Saturday evened the series up.
Jake Thompson took a beating from the start, giving up the lead run in the first inning. After a perfect second, Thompson began the Dirtbags’ downward spiral, giving up five earned runs on six hits. LBSU’s defense faltered as well, making three errors on the day.
“It starts on the mound. It always starts on the mound. And he was not the guy on the mound today that was going to lead the team,” Weathers said of Thompson. “I thought Thompson put us behind with bad tempo, which took us out of any energy we might have had.”
Thompson (1-3) lasted just two and a third innings – his shortest outing of the season – surrendering six earned on seven hits, walking two and striking out only one. Bryan Shaw gave up the seventh run in his only inning.
Paul Bargas (1-3) had a stellar outing on the mound for the Highlanders, pitching his first complete game of the season and giving up just a solo homer to Shane Peterson. Bargas held the Dirtbags to just five hits, walked three, hit one batter and fanned five. Only three times did the Dirtbags have runners in scoring position, and Bargas eliminated the threat each time.
“We’re not directing the ball properly,” Weathers said. “Compared to how [Riverside] hit all weekend, how they centered the ball and hit more line drives, our guys are not doing that. That’s a fundamental offensive thing that we’ve got to fix.
“If we don’t fix it, we’re in trouble.”
The lone highlight of the day was the bullpen, with the minor exception of Shaw. Five relievers combined to shut out the Highlanders until Shaw came on the mound in the eighth. Left-handed specialist Jason Markovitz was especially impressive in the series, retiring all four batters faced Sunday and two of three by strikeouts Saturday.
“He did what he was supposed to do: He came in and got the left-handed hitters out,” Weathers said. “He did his job and he was the bright spot.”
The arduous schedule of 13 games in 17 days has begun to take its toll on the Dirtbags, and the losses that have piled up as of late are severely affecting the clubhouse mentality, according to Peterson.
“I know in the early part of the season the whole attitude in the dugout was completely different,” Peterson said. “It was almost like we felt like we were going to win no matter what, and now it’s definitely changed.
“We just need make sure that we go out there and try to remember what it was like to win and get that positive attitude back.”
