Aztecs Rolling as They Head Out on Long Road

Jim Dietz, San Diego State’s baseball coach, was returning from a meeting at about 10:30 Wednesday morning when one of the athletic department secretaries approached him.

Dietz and the SDSU baseball team were planning to leave Thursday evening for Wyoming, where they will play doubleheaders today and Sunday. But their travel agent had a fistful of airplane tickets that said they would leave Wednesday afternoon in, oh, about six hours.

After some scrambling, the tickets were exchanged, and the Aztecs were once again scheduled for a Thursday departure.

There are two lessons here: 1. Even the most well-planned trip can throw you some curves, and 2. When you’re hot, sometimes the curves just don’t matter, and things go your way anyway.

And the Aztecs--who are on an 18-game winning streak that tied them with the 1979 team for the school’s second-longest (24 in 1983 is the record)--are blazing hot.

The road gets bumpy over the next three weeks, because SDSU’s home schedule has expired. Including Tuesday’s 11-4 victory at UC Irvine, the Aztecs--rated 17th in the latest ESPN/Collegiate Baseball poll--close the season with 14 consecutive road games, not including the Western Athletic Conference playoffs May 19-21 at the University of Hawaii.

Although the Aztecs (37-13-1, 14-2) have won 18 in a row and 14 consecutive WAC games, they trail Hawaii (34-14, 15-1) by a game in the conference standings. The Aztecs have two doubleheaders at Wyoming (fifth at 5-10) this weekend and two more at Utah (seventh, 2-9) next weekend.

Hawaii has four-game series left at Colorado State (sixth, 3-10) and Brigham Young (third, 11-3).

SDSU and Hawaii will meet for a four-game series in Hawaii May 13-15.

“The streak isn’t important,” Dietz said. “There’s no pressure. The only thing we’re trying to do is overtake Hawaii for first place.

“We realize it’s difficult to win all of your games, but you try to play the best baseball you can. If we were to lose every game from here on out, we would still probably be in the WAC playoffs, so from that standpoint, there’s not a lot of pressure.”

The top four teams qualify for the playoffs, and at this point Hawaii, SDSU and Brigham Young appear to have berths locked up. The fourth spot is in doubt.

Still, the next three weeks won’t be easy for the Aztecs. Consider that the Padres’ longest trip of the season is 13 games. Fourteen in a row on the road, before loud fans, on foreign turf and possibly in adverse weather conditions can be brutal.

But Dietz likes his club’s position.

“This team has a better chance on the road than any other I’ve ever had,” he said. “They’re good people and good students. They’re honest, mature, and they understand what I want from them.”

Rob Brown, who will pitch the first game today, is 7-3 with a 2.30 earned-run average. In April, he is 4-0 with three complete-game victories. In his last 30 innings, he has allowed only two earned runs (0.60 ERA) and struck out 30.

John Marshall, who will start the second game, is 7-1 with a 3.69 ERA. Sunday’s pitchers are Erik Plantenberg (6-0, 4.31) and John Hemmerly (5-2, 4.64). For the season, the pitching staff’s ERA is 4.31, but it is 3.06 during the 18-game winning streak.

Those aren’t the only impressive numbers. SDSU is batting .323 (first baseman Harry Henderson leads at .423), including .340 during the winning streak. And the Aztecs have fielded .981 in the past 18 games.

“Most of the guys are having above-average years,” Dietz said. “And that’s what you have to have to pull off a successful season. One or two guys can’t carry a team.”

Unless the Aztecs collapse during the next three weeks, they already have had a successful season. But the next 13 games will help determine just how successful.

Aztec Notes

There is a possibility that the Aztecs will play in San Diego again this spring if they advance to an NCAA regional. Dietz said this week that SDSU is thinking of submitting a bid to host one. “We won’t know for a while,” Dietz said. “Those things rest with the administration. It depends on how we do as a team.” The regionals are scheduled from May 26-28, when the Padres are in Montreal and then New York. Dietz said it’s possible that SDSU would host the games at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.