For Contreras, Northridge Mates, the Days Appear Numbered : College baseball: Matadors, with a pitching staff decimated by injuries, face three games against the hottest team in the WAC.

Marco Contreras looks like a walking memorial. He’s wearing everything but an armband, or maybe a black veil.

Give him time. There are still three games left.

Contreras, Cal State Northridge’s pitching ace, wears the uniform pants of reliever Jason Van Heerde, who is out for the season because of an arm injury. Contreras has scribbled the uniform numbers of starting pitchers Keven Kempton and John Najar on his spikes. Both are sidelined because of arm injuries.

Three weeks ago, Contreras scrawled another number on his shoes when shortstop Chad Thornhill suffered a broken right elbow.

Talk about a farewell to arms. Not to mention a leg--that of power-hitting first baseman Andy Shaw, who had knee surgery before the season started.

“It all started when Shaw went down,” Contreras said. “Almost everybody’s gone down.”

Down, but not out.

Despite an overall record below the break-even mark, despite enough injuries to make M*A*S*H’s Hawkeye Pierce gag into his surgical mask, despite enough off-the-field distractions to cause third-vertebrae whiplash, the Matadors still have a pulse.

Last rites were administered on a couple of occasions, yet illogical as it seems, Northridge still has a shot at postseason play before the final weekend of the regular season.

“You’re dealing with baseball,” Coach Bill Kernen said. “It’s weird stuff. Sometimes the game takes over. So you play it and see what happens.”

When it comes to Northridge, what hasn’t happened? But when a three-game series opens at Fresno State’s Beiden Field tonight at 7, the Matadors (25-27 overall) will be squarely in the running for the Western Athletic Conference West Division title.

Northridge and Fresno State (33-23) are tied in West Division play at 12-9, one game behind San Diego State, which plays host to Cal State Sacramento in a three-game series this weekend. Northridge needs a monumental assist from slumping Sacramento (26-26, 9-12), and three victories from the beleaguered Matador pitching staff wouldn’t hurt, either.

If the Matadors somehow finish in a first-place tie with the Aztecs, they would win the division crown based on the conference tiebreaker system. Northridge and San Diego State (31-22) split their six games of head-to-head play--the first WAC tiebreaker. The second tiebreaker is the teams’ records against the next-best team in the standings, which under this scenario would be Fresno State.

San Diego State split six games with Fresno State. Because Northridge took two of three from the Bulldogs in late March and would have to win the weekend series to force a tie with the Aztecs, the Matadors would get the nod.

Beating Fresno State at Beiden Field might not seem realistic--the Bulldogs are 21-11 at home in 1994 and hold a 40-22 series edge over the Matadors. Then again, a fourth consecutive postseason appearance seemed incomprehensible two weeks ago.

“You’d never expect that, no way,” Kernen said. “We’re just lucky. Nobody in the league has taken charge.”

Uh, lucky?

Fresno State, ranked 29th by Collegiate Baseball, has won 12 of its last 13 games. The Bulldogs spanked fourth-ranked Cal State Fullerton, 12-6, Tuesday. Fullerton bombed Northridge, 13-1, last week.

“Of course, we would have to be playing the only hot team in their place,” Kernen said. “Maybe we’re not so lucky.”

There were times when they weren’t so happy, either. At midseason, Kernen was so sickened by his team’s less-than-killer instinct that he benched several starters over a two-week stretch. Kernen publicly blasted several players for missing class and study hall and for being late to games and practices.

On March 30, Kernen refused to allow the players to to wear their uniform tops in a game against Cal Lutheran. Kernen called the team “dead,” and players flew the stadium flag at half-staff.

The mood was funereal. Frustration boiled over when two players scuffled briefly during a postgame meeting.

There’s still some fight left in the team. The Matadors will send right-handers Brian Vasey (1-2, 5.77 earned-run average), Aaron D’Aoust (7-3, 7.75) and Contreras (7-6, 4.81) to the mound in the series. Only Contreras opened the season as a front-line starting pitcher.

A front-line battle is precisely what the season has become. The casualties mounted with every passing week, and now the margin of error is almost nonexistent. There are only six sound pitchers on the staff who have logged more than 10 innings.

“It seems like when we have our backs against the wall, we do better,” Contreras said. “It’ll never be more against the wall than right now.”