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It’s time to see if predictions about the Lobo baseball team will come true.
UNM is on everyone’s radar: Baseball America ranked it No. 21 and MWC coaches expect it to be conference champ again. Senior catcher Mitch Garver, a preseason All-American, said there is no added pressure in being picked the top team in the Mountain West.
“We’re getting more used to (the pressure),” he said. “It’s kind of the thing of when we play our best baseball our opponent plays their best baseball. When teams play us they have to step up and play their best.”
The Lobos are coming off a 37-24 campaign in which they won a share of the MWC regular-season title and took home the tournament championship.
“Just like the last two years, we’re going to have a target on our back,” Garver said. “With TCU leaving, we’re really the team to beat, so teams are going to play their best ball against us.” The Horned Frogs left the Mountain West to join the Big-12 in all sports last July.
Junior first baseman DJ Peterson said the Lobos are prepared to face everyone’s best effort.
“We’re the team to beat, and I think every team is going to bring an extra edge when they play us,” he said at the team’s media day last week.
UNM opens the season with a three-game home stand against Oklahoma State today at Isotopes Park. The Cowboys have a new head coach, Josh Holliday, who played 256 games while attending OSU and was an assistant coach at Vanderbilt the past three seasons.
Lobo head coach Ray Birmingham said he doesn’t know what to expect from OSU because of the its coaching staff.
“It’s just a good coaching staff,” he said. “They’ve provided new energy and that’s going to be tough, because Oklahoma State is good.”
OSU had one of the toughest pitching staffs last season, ranking 18th in the nation with an earned run average of 3.08. The Cowboys lost six pitchers from last year’s 32-25 club that finished fifth in the Big-12, including pitcher Andrew Heaney, who was selected ninth overall in the 2012 MLB June Amateur Draft by the Miami Marlins.
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Holliday, brother of St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Matt Holliday, said the pitching staff is lacking much-needed experience.
“When you look at our pitching staff right now, the biggest question is trying to get guys who don’t have a ton of experience at this level molded into a quality pitching staff,” Holliday told okstate.com. “There are a lot of unknowns, but at the same time there’s a lot of excitement to see who will handle these opportunities when they’re given.”
The Lobos had one of the best offenses in all of college baseball last year, finishing fifth in batting average (.326), fourth in hits (728), 21st in on-base percentage (391), sixth in runs (468) and eighth in slugging percentage (.472).
Senior shortstop Alex Allbritton said scoring runs shouldn’t be a problem for the squad.
“We have a lot of good bats in our lineup,” he said. “As long as the team surrounding DJ is hitting well, we can get a lot of runs.”
