Spartan Daily

SJSU baseball sheds the rust as it prepares for a new season

Raphael Kluzniok

Despite the long and productive offseason, head coach Sam Piraro said baseball is a sport that encompasses the idea of ever-improving talent, which he expects from this year’s Spartan squad.

“We are still trying to create a mentality and culture to where every time we hit the field we have to show improvement and make progress on things we’ve been working on,” Piraro said.

As part of its pre-season routine, the team played a three-game series of inter-squad games to give Piraro a chance to watch his players in a game-like scenario, as well as give the players an opportunity to get back into the swing of things.

However, Piraro said there is evidence of rust that has yet to be removed.

“The three months in the fall is no picnic what they have to go through,” he said. “Then there’s the month off, which can create some rust. I think we might still be suffering from that.”

Big names are missing from the 2011 team that finished in fifth place in the Western Athletic Conference with a 35-26 overall record, 11-13 in the WAC.

The Spartans return a total of nine pitchers and 12 position players from last season.  Twelve are letter-winners and 13 are newcomers to the roster.

By the end of the 2011 Major League Baseball Draft, five Spartans from last year’s team were slated to join professional baseball clubs.

Pitcher Roberto Padilla was picked by the Colorado Rockies in the eighth round, first baseman Danny Stienstra to the St. Louis Cardinals in the 12th round, pitcher Esteban Guzman in the 17th round to the Washington Nationals and outfielder Kerry Jenkins was selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 44th round.

Blake McFarland, who was selected by WAC Sports as the 2011 conference’s pre-season pitcher of the year, went undrafted but signed a free agent contract with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Luckily for SJSU, Piraro said, Guzman decided to return to school and earn his degree from SJSU.

“It was an entirely personal decision,” Guzman said. “I wanted to graduate in four years, it’s always been my goal.”

Guzman said a lot of talented pitching arms are gone, but added that he is ready to lead the 2012 Spartan pitching squad.

“Definitely we have huge shoes to fill,” he said. “The majority of our innings from last season are gone with (McFarland) and (Padilla) but we have a lot of capable arms to take over.”

Piraro said he expects some of the pitchers who have not received many innings on the mound thus far in their careers to step up now that they will be called on much more often.

“Our pitching rotation is still building,” he said. “Guys that have been in our program for some time but have not been at the front of the line — now it’s their turn.”

Some of the pitchers Piraro noted as keys to this season’s potential success are sophomores Johnny Melero, D.J. Slaton and junior David Wayne Russo.

“These guys pitched innings last year that were not necessarily game-on-the-line innings,” Piraro said. “Now they’re called on to step forward, and they’ve done a good job.”

Piraro added that Guzman, the team’s leader in innings pitched  from this season's group of returning players, will more than likely not able to pitch to start the season because of extensive throwing he did while playing for a South Carolina minor league baseball club during the summer.

“If you put a gun to my head, I would say those three (Melero, Slaton and Russo) would start the season next week,” Piraro said.

Another arm that is expected to take the reigns from the program’s departed players is junior Zack Jones, who, despite being the team’s closer, was selected by WAC Sports as the conference's pre-season pitcher of the year.

Jones also made the All-WAC pre-season team as a designated hitter after hitting .316 with seven doubles, three home runs and 26 RBIs in 2011.

However, Piraro said Jones will not be able to start the season in game-time pitching form because of appendicitis and will be out anywhere from 10 days to two weeks.

“We’re lucky to have a guy like Zack to finish games,” Piraro said. “We don’t want to dwell on his absence. We don’t want the team to think about it, but we need to know we’re still good without him.”

As far as the everyday lineup is concerned, Piraro said he’s still tinkering with it.

Piraro said he has only three constants at the moment in his lineup — junior outfielder Tim Quiery, newcomer junior catcher Kyle Gallegos, who transfered from Chabot College and Jones as designated hitter, if he were healthy.

“Other positions are still competing,” he said. “We have six guys competing for three outfield spots, the middle infield has position battles and we have a couple options at first base.”

Sophomore infielder Jacob Velez, who is competing for the starting second base job, said his philosophy at the plate has not changed from last season and added that he would like to improve his defense to help ensure him the starting role.

“I have the same approach at the plate as last year,” he said. “It worked well so I’m going to stick with it. I would just like to see my defense improve a little.”

Junior third baseman Tyler Christian, who led the team last season with six home runs, said the team has been working a lot on small-ball aspects at the plate, including bunting and hitting to all fields.

“We have been working mainly on our execution at the plate,” he said. “I’m trying to hit more to the opposite field this year. I pulled the ball a lot last year and now I’m trying to let the ball get deeper in the zone.”

In another of its pre-season polls released Wednesday, WAC Sports selected SJSU to finish in second place in the conference this season, collecting three first-place votes — one less than Fresno State.

However, Piraro believes that Fresno State and Hawaii, who finished third in the projected poll, are the best the WAC has to offer.

“The championship goes to Fresno and Hawaii, there’s no getting around that,” he said. “Fresno is the class of the league — program and talent wise. We have to raise our game to get into that category."

Piraro added that Fresno and Hawaii have a larger margin of error, and if SJSU can play at a certain level and standard of the game and come out every day with its “A” game then they can compete with the conference’s front-runners.

“It’s not a slap at our guys, it is what it is,” Piraro said. “Our guys are up to the challenge with that. Our players are very competitive and have pride in themselves.

“We tell our guys that if we play a certain level and standard of the game of baseball, we can compete with those guys. Our margin of error is not as big as Fresno’s, it’s not as big as Hawaii’s."

Christian said most of all he can’t wait to hit the diamond and for the season to begin.

“I have seen the team come together and leaders emerge,” he said. “This is going to be a fun and great year — I’m ready to get it started.”

The Spartans will host the program’s annual alumni game on Saturday at Blethlen Field at 1 p.m.

SJSU’s first sanctioned game is Feb. 17 against the University of San Francisco at San Jose Municipal Stadium at 6 p.m.