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The UNM baseball team dominated La Salle 16-3 Tuesday to snap a four-game losing streak, but head coach Ray Birmingham wasn’t satisfied with his team’s performance.
Birmingham cited poor at-bats and the three errors the team committed as to why he wasn’t pleased. Sophomore first baseman Alex Real made all three of the errors during the third inning.
“It wasn’t a very well-played ball game at all,” Birmingham said Tuesday at Isotopes Park. “We just can’t go a game without a defensive error. We haven’t had any trouble before … we led the Mountain West Conference in fielding percentage last year. It’s high school stuff, and it’s not just one guy — you can’t even get these guys to do the routine things.”
Senior outfielder Luke Campbell said the Lobos played a solid game and that the team needed this victory.
“This is huge for us right now to just get back into town,” he said. “We just need things to start going in the right direction.”
The Lobos were down early to the Explorers 3-2, but in the bottom of the third UNM took its first lead of the game after junior outfielder John Pustay hit a two-RBI single to give the Lobos a 4-3 advantage. Junior outfielder Chase Harris added a run to UNM’s lead after Pustay was caught stealing a base.
UNM added two more runs in the bottom of the fourth thanks to an RBI single by senior catcher Mitch Garver and junior third baseman DJ Peterson.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, leading 7-3, UNM broke open the game with four runs for an 11-3 edge. The final two runs of the inning came off Campbell’s two-run home run. It was Campbell’s first dinger since May 6, 2011 against Air Force.
UNM added five more runs in the bottom of the eighth to seal the game. Senior outfielder Josh Melendez brought in the final two runs of the game with his third hit of the game a two-RBI double.
Junior pitcher Josh Walker picked up his first victory of the season by tossing three shutout innings of relief with four hits and five strikeouts. Sophomore starting pitcher Alex Estrella went three and two thirds innings giving up three runs on five hits.
Senior left handed pitcher Gabe Aguilar and freshman pitcher Taylor Duree joined for two and a third innings, allowing zero hits.
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“I know my job is to go in and throw strikes,” Walker said. “I was able to do that tonight and I got some good defensive play behind me tonight.”
Three Lobos had three or more hits and as a team UNM had 16 hits combined. La Salle (2-6) had nine hits with sophomore right fielder Justin Korenblatt leading the way with three hits and two RBIs.
