Last Friday, the Chico State Baseball team won their first game of the season 13-0 against the Saint Martin’s Saints, leading the team to win the other three games that were played over the weekend. 

For junior Rylan Tinsley, getting to pitch and help contribute to a shutout game was important for him and the team. 

“It feels great [to get the first team win of the season], I’m just excited for the boys,” Tinsley said. “They played their hearts out, our pitchers had defense behind us and we were able to put up runs offensively.” 

Tinsley had impressive numbers in the first game, pitching five full innings, only allowing three hits and no runs when he was on the mound.

Nonetheless, Tinsley couldn’t have done it without the help of his fielders. In a troubling scenario with only one out and bases loaded, juniors Jarret Lindsay and Willie Lajoie connected on a double play that kept the game scoreless for the Saints.

“That gave us a lot of momentum,” Lindsay said. “We practice those types of plays a lot during practice, so to implement it in a game it was a lot of fun and it helped out a lot.”  

The scoring started early with Lajoie hitting a double down the right field line, which allowed senior Jack Murphy to score during the bottom of the first inning. Then going into the bottom of the seventh inning, the Wildcats scored eight more runs which put the game out of reach for the Saints, and gave the Wildcats a 13-0 win in their first game of the season.

The offense didn’t stop in the first game for the Wildcats, in the first of two games they played on Saturday. The Chico State Baseball team won 24-4 in an offense heavy game for the Wildcats.

 In the blowout win, the Wildcats gained a 12-1 lead in the first three innings and had a total of 20 hits during the game. In the 24-4 win, six Wildcat players had a multi-hit game against Saint Martin’s.

In the last game of the doubleheader on Saturday, the Wildcats won 8-1 putting up all eight runs in the bottom of the second inning. It wouldn’t have been possible without help from sophomore Grady Morgan, who hit a double to left-center field, and gave the team three runs off of his at bat.

The bullpen played an important role as well. On Saturday, sophomore Cody Gentry pitched five innings and had a total of three hits allowed, one earned-run and 10 strikeouts. Then, freshman Cayden Castellanos came into the game to relieve Gentry from the mound, and struck out one of the three batters that he faced.

 Sophomore Gavin Kinney came in at the top of the seventh to pitch for Castellanos. He only allowed one hit from five batters, and finished the last game on Saturday night.

On Sunday, the Wildcats completed the four-game sweep over the Saints with a score of 14-3, in a game that was fairly close in its first half. In the top of the first with two outs, Saint Martin’s first baseman, Aaron Renaud hit a home run clearing the right field wall.

Momentum shifted toward the Saints once they went up 3-1 at the top of the fourth.

However, that did not stop the Wildcats from tying the game. In the bottom of the fourth inning, Chico State tied the game off of a throwing error by the Saints.

The Wildcats gained the lead in the fifth inning off of a two-run home run that was hit toward center field by Lajoie, and eventually, they put the game out of reach when they scored eight runs in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Closing out a successful four-game series over Saint Martin’s, Murphy was pleased with how the team played overall this weekend.

 “Offensively we were on everything, having a lot of big innings, and defensively we just limited the errors and played good defense,” Murphy said. 

With the Wildcats outscoring their opponents 59-8 in just four games, Murphy believes that there is some work to be done before next weekend. 

“Sometimes we swing at pitches out of the zone, and defensively every error for us is something we take personally,” Murphy said. “So just cleaning up how we play a little bit.” 

Looking ahead toward the upcoming series against Fresno Pacific University, head coach Dave Taylor is happy with the team’s success this past weekend, but is primarily focused on the first road trip for the 25th-ranked Wildcats. 

“It is tough to really evaluate where we are, but playing the way we did this weekend gave us the confidence,” Taylor said. “We will really get a gauge when we play Fresno this coming weekend.”  

The Chico State Wildcats will be facing off against Fresno Pacific University at the FPU Diamond in a three-game series starting Feb. 11, then both teams will play their doubleheader Saturday with the first game beginning at noon and with the last game at 3 p.m.

For more information about the game, check out the Chico State Athletics Baseball homepage.

Alejandro Mejia Mejia can be reached at orionmanagingeditor.com or @mejiamejialex on Twitter.