USD Routed by UC Irvine in Opener

The University of San Diego baseball team, looking for big hitters and improved pitchers this season, came up a bit short of expectations Thursday afternoon in a 9-3 season-opening loss to UC Irvine.

John Cunningham, coaching in his first game at USD’s home field since it was renamed in his honor, will have to wait at least until today to get his first victory in it. USD will play host to UCLA at 2 p.m.

Cunningham has coached 549 baseball victories, but No. 1 at newly named Cunningham Field was pretty much out of the question after the third inning Thursday, when Doug Kline gave UC Irvine (2-2) a 5-0 lead with a three-run home run off USD starter and loser Louis Skertich.

Skertich, USD’s top winner (6-3) last season, allowed only two hits in 3 innings but walked five batters, and three scored.

With USD trailing, 1-0, with the bases loaded and one out in the third, Skertich got John Seeburger to hit a possible double-play grounder. First baseman Sean Baron got the lead runner at second, and Skertich was covering in time to receive Chris Bwy’s relay throw to first. But Skertich was off the bag, and Seeburger reached safely, a run scoring in the process. Kline followed with his home run, which easily cleared the 375-foot sign in left-center field.

“Louis was never that wild all last season,” Cunningham said. “He just wasn’t himself out there.”

The USD offense, with six players who batted better than .300 last season, wasn’t itself, either. The Toreros managed just six hits off Jeff Haack (1-1), a left-hander who had allowed nine runs in four innings in his first start last week at Arizona.

The Toreros managed just one hit through the first six innings, and that was questionable. In the fourth, Dave Rolls hit a fly ball down the left-field line that appeared to go foul. But it was ruled fair, and Rolls had a home run.

USD got its next hit when it trailed, 9-1, in the bottom of the seventh. And by that time, it was too late.