Baseball seeks to snap losing streak

In the midst of a five-game losing streak, the baseball team will look to get back on track against Long Beach State Tuesday.

Head coach Dan Hubbs gave his players the day off from practice Monday in order to “focus” and “mentally prepare” for Long Beach State after a being swept in a three game series on the road against Oregon last weekend.

“It was a bad week overall, coming off of a good week,” Hubbs said. “We did not pitch well. We put too many guys on base, threw too many balls over the middle of the plate. And because of that, we lost.”

Though Hubbs notes that there were some positive takeaways in the Oregon series from the offense — led by senior Timmy Robinson, who went 3-of-4 on Friday and 3-of-5 on Saturday, Hubbs affirmed that the greatest weakness with the team is its starting pitching.

Redshirt junior pitcher Joe Navilhon kept the Trojans largely in the game Friday, pitching seven innings and allowing 4 runs off of six hits. Tied 3-3 until the sixth inning, it was a series of two throwing errors from the defense that allowed Oregon’s Jack Bennet to score the go-ahead run of the contest.

But sophomore pitcher Mitch Hart — who is being slowly and cautiously reinserted into the rotation after returning from injury — lasted just an inning in his start Saturday, giving up 4 earned runs on two hits and four walks.

Senior Kyle Davis, the Sunday starter, threw five innings, allowing eight hits and 5 runs. Davis too got roughed up in the first inning, allowing 2 runs off of three hits, and failed to stop the bleeding in the second inning, giving up 3 runs off four hits.

“We are playing good teams, and when you play good teams with good pitchers, the games are going to generally be close,” Hubbs said, “We have to do a better job of not giving up base runners and being able to execute all of our pitches. And I think, once again, it comes with the intent to get the guy out as opposed to hoping that we make the right pitch.”

Hubbs noted if this team is going to turn their season around, players have to place their attention towards winning their immediate game or matchup as opposed to a championship and that the pitchers cannot dwell upon anything beyond winning their immediate battles with the batters in front of them.

The Trojans have also had several three-game win streaks this season and Hubbs knows his team is capable of another one.

“We have seen how one good weekend can just turn your whole season around,” Hubbs said. “But we need to just have one good game before having one good weekend.”

USC defeated Long Beach State 7-4 in their only previous meeting of the year 7-4 on March 1 thanks to a career-high five-hit day from senior outfielder David Oppenheim.

Long Beach State has a 21-13 overall record, and Hubbs is preparing his players for a talented pitching staff that generally throws fastballs and sliders for strikes down in the zone. They do not give up a lot of free base runners and boast an athletic offense that likes to run and make sure the runner scores when on base.

“At the end of the day, you have to win as many games as we can but we can only win them one game at a time,” Hubbs said. “We have got to focus on Tuesday and then we will worry about Washington State after we worry about Long Beach.”

First pitch of the one game series is at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Dedeaux Field.