49er Series Will Give Titans a Progress Check

Cal State Fullerton has an impressive 33-12 record, is ranked 16th nationally and appears to be gathering late-season momentum for another NCAA baseball playoff run.

But Titan Coach George Horton isn’t convinced, though his team has won seven in a row and 13 of its last 14 games.

“We still need to get better before the end of the regular season to think about that,” Horton said. “We still have room to grow.”

The Titans will get an important update on their progress when they meet Long Beach State in a three-game series beginning at 7 tonight at Blair Field in Long Beach. The teams are tied for first in the Big West Conference’s Southern Division with 17-4 records.

Long Beach is the only team other than top-ranked Stanford to win a series from Fullerton this year. Rain reduced the Stanford-Fullerton series early in the year to a one-day doubleheader, with one of the games only seven innings. Stanford won twice.

Fullerton won the first game of the last series against the 49ers, 9-2, behind the pitching of Erasmo Ramirez, but Long Beach’s strong hitting prevailed the next two days, 17-9 and 10-9.

The 49ers have lost six of their last 11 games and have fallen to 26-16.

Long Beach leads the conference in batting (.363) and Fullerton in pitching (3.82 earned-run average). Long Beach outfielders Paul Day (.458) and Chuck Lopez (.433) are the conference’s top two hitters. Titan pitcher Benny Flores (9-0) leads the Big West in victories.

Flores is scheduled to start the opener for Fullerton with Ramirez (6-5) going Saturday and Greg Jacobs (3-2) Sunday. All are left-handers. Long Beach State Coach Dave Snow plans to start three right-handers: Caleb Balbuena (4-1) tonight, followed by Jeff Leuenberger (4-2) and Jason Berni (5-4). Berni and Leuenberger are freshmen.