Without Stephen Strasburg, the pitcher Lobo head coach Ray Birmingham once said was rumored to be worth $25 million, San Diego State is worth all of 25 bucks.
The Lobos took the rubber match 20-8 Sunday at Tony Gwynn Stadium, snatching two of three games from the Aztecs over the weekend — this coming after the Lobos withered rather embarrassingly on national television Friday night, suffering their first shutout since April 17, 2009. Ironically enough, it was San Diego State and Strasburg that last held the Lobos scoreless.
UNM came within one game of sweeping all six contests between the two supposed bitter rivals this year.
Birmingham, though, downplayed any lingering hostility between the two programs. Last year, after the Aztecs beat the Lobos 1-0, Strasburg pumped his fist in celebration.
Later, Birmingham remarked about Strasburg’s attitude, though he wouldn’t elaborate on why he said Strasburg needed to control his emotions. Then, the Daily Aztec, SDSU’s student newspaper, quoted Gwynn, SDSU’s head coach, making what could be perceived as forceful comments toward Birmingham: “Just take care of your club,” he said. “I’ll take care of mine.”
Still, Birmingham maintained that the alleged hatred between the Lobos and Aztecs is manufactured.
“The only animosity between these two programs was started up by some guy,” he said. “I have all the respect in the world for the Aztecs, and I’m glad we beat them at their place.”
After absorbing Friday’s whipping, the Lobos turned in a drubbing of their own Saturday behind Willy Kesler’s arm. The result was a 14-1 victory.
Kesler, who last week was named Mountain West Conference co-pitcher of the Week, threw eight shutout innings, giving up only two hits Saturday, while helping Birmingham earn his 100th win as Lobo head coach. Kesler improved to 4-1 overall and fanned seven batters, bringing his season strikeout total to 64.
The Lobos’ RPI continues to fluctuate from week to week. They dropped from 28th to 34th in the NCAA’s most recent weekly rankings, but, as of Sunday, the ranking had yet to be updated to reflect the Lobos’ wins over SDSU. More favorably, UNM possesses wins over Texas, which was ranked No. 1 at the time, and USC. The Lobos were twice within one run of beating college baseball powerhouse Arkansas, dropping those games 4-3 and 5-4, respectively.
UNM has nine games left — six at home — including a crucial three-game series with conference leader TCU (34-9 overall, 14-3 MWC), which starts on Friday before facing Delaware State and closing with three games against Utah on the road.
“It’s going to be a brawl, and we have to play perfect baseball,” Birmingham said about the Lobos’ upcoming series with TCU. “TCU has dominated this conference. So far, we’ve been the only ones to make a run at them. Here we are again: UNM and TCU for the conference championship, possibly.”
At 12-5 in league play, in order to take over sole possession of first in the conference, the Lobos will have to sweep the Horned Frogs. Even if the Lobos won the series, they’d be one game back of TCU for the MWC regular-season championship with TCU set to conclude its conference season against Air Force.
Thus, UNM’s regular-season championship aspirations would hinge on what both the Lobos and Horned Frogs did in their last conference series. In that regard, though, it would likely take a miracle — and equally cataclysmic TCU choke job — for the Horned Frogs not to sweep the series against the Falcons.
“We’ll have to have a good record from here on out in our last nine ballgames,” Birmingham said. “If we win five of our last nine ballgames, it should put us in a good spot. We’ve done everything we can. How you finish is important, though.”
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*Baseball vs. TCU
Friday
Isotopes Park
12 p.m.*
