Fourth-inning follies almost foiled the UNM baseball team's four-game sweep of Northern Colorado. But behind Cole White's feverish 90-mph pitching, the Lobos held on to win 10-8.
White entered in the top of the sixth. He pitched 2 2/3 innings, faced nine batters and finished with five strikeouts. He kept Northern Colorado off balance with a steady mix of fastballs that consistently hit the low- to mid-90s, topping out at 93 on the radar gun.
When it wasn't his fastball, White's breaking ball made the Bears' batters look goofy. He had great control over his breaking ball - and the Bears chopped wood more than baseballs.
"Whenever it's a tight game like that, it's just adrenaline flow," White said. "If I can get those two pitches working, it's a good day."
Head coach Ray Birmingham said his pitchers were like AK-47s.
"He and Clinton Cox are automatic," Birmingham said.
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UNM tagged the Bears often in the four-game series. On Friday, the Lobos beat Northern Colorado 10-1. Saturday, the Lobos humiliated the Bears 13-5 and 23-3, before closing out the series Sunday.
On Sunday, the Lobos stormed out to a 3-0 lead through two innings. In the top of the third, however, Kevin Sandberg, who was also Northern Colorado's starting pitcher, blasted a three-run, two-out homer off Kenny Toves, tying the game at three apiece. The Lobos scored three in the bottom part of the inning to reclaim a 6-3 lead.
But in the fourth, the Bears threatened to blow the game open. They scored five runs, and UNM reliever Edwin Carl struggled.
Carl was ineffective in Toves' relief. He gave up only one hit but allowed four runs and plunked two batters to load the bases. With the bases juiced, Carl walked the Bears' Phil Santucci, bringing in a run and making the score 6-5.
Rudy Jaramillo inherited three runners when he took the mound for Carl. An error on a routine double play by Dane Hamilton scored another run and extended the inning. With two runs scored, the Lobos turned a 6-3 lead into an 8-6 deficit.
In the bottom of the fourth, the Lobos narrowed the margin to 8-7.
A well-executed bunt by Justin Howard loaded the bases. Danny Hernandez grazed Sandberg's ensuing pitch hard enough to get a two-RBI single, putting the Lobos up 9-8 in the fifth and ahead for good.
"We probably could've scored another five runs today," Birmingham said. "We had some baserunning miscues. We'll hit and run. We'll bunt. We'll try to hit the ball out of the yard. We'll spray line drives."
Brian Cavazos-Galvez finished 3-of-4 on the day. He had a grand slam in the second leg of Saturday's double header that gave the Lobos an 11-2 lead.
"He's still swinging at pitches he shouldn't swing at," Birmingham said. "They're trying to pitch around him. And I was proud of him. For the first time in his life, he had two walks and a sac bunt."
Lately, Cavazos-Galvez hadn't seemed himself; he was benched for the last game of a four-game series against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, and he didn't play in UNM's two-game series against Texas Tech because of illness.
"A lot of the pressure Brian has is because of you guys," Birmingham said. "And I don't mean that disrespectfully. But he's a hometown boy and you guys always want to put him above the rest of him because he's a hometown boy. He thinks he has to live up to those expectations. If you watch the team, he's just another one of the guys."
After Sunday's performance, Cavazos-Galvez is batting .393.
"We know when he gets hot, he's pretty special," Birmingham said. "How about that grand slam?"
Baseball at NMSU
Tuesday, 6 p.m.
Las Cruces
