Dirtbags blast past Cal

In what is still a very young season, there are two nagging questions facing the Cal State Long Beach baseball team, when are their bats going to start jumping like everyone expected, and what are they going to do about the starting pitching rotation?

Well, they got one answerÑ big time.

The 49ers jacked up Cal pitchers on Monday with 18 hits in a 15-7 rout taking the last game of a four-game non-conference series before 617 at Blair Field. CSULB (5-5) avenged a 6-4 loss on Sunday after taking the first two games of the series.

The long ball was reintroduced by the 49er squad which cranked four tatters. Steve Doherty, Brandon Hyde, Chuck Lopez and Toby Sanchez each had bombs contributing to the highest 49er run total since June of last season.

As for the pitching question...

Head Coach Dave Snow put true freshman Daryl Grant on the mound ending speculation that bullpen ace Ara Petrosian may break into the starting rotation.

Petrosian has been nothing short of unstoppable in his relief appearances leading Snow to believe that he may be capable of any role.

However Grant, who has given up no runs in his two relief appearances this season, wasn't sharp in his collegiate debut as a starter.

Before the seats were warm, Grant walked the first three batters in the Cal lineup allowing the Golden Bears (6-7) to take an early 2-0 lead.

Grant was replaced in the second inning by Matt Montgomery, but when the waters got rough in the fifth, guess who got the call. With the score tied at 6-6, in came Petrosian and out went the lights for Cal. He struck out six earning the win while shutting down the Golden Bears in 4 2/3 innings of work.

"We have a guy like him and that was the difference in the ball game," said Snow, who stressed Petrosian's importance coming out of the bullpen. "We need him to finish off games right now. I don't have anybody else that has shown me the commanding stuff to finish games off."

The ability to finish games off is exactly what is making Petrosian one of the top pitchers in the Big West Conference. In his 16 innings of work, he has struck out 19 batters while giving up just nine hits.

Prior to Monday's appearance, Petrosian, a junior transfer from Cypress College, had worked 11 1/3 scoreless innings of relief. Petrosian stretched it to 15 2/3 before yielding his first run of the year on a solo pinch-hit home run by Barry Schell in the ninth. "Good things come to an end sometimes, "Petrosian said of the high fast ball Schell whacked ending his scoreless streak. "I was getting a little tired in there."

The 49ers cut Cal's early 3-0 lead to 3-2 in the third inning on back-to-back RBI singles by Chuck Lopez and Izzy Gonzalez. Paul Day led off the fourth with a single to left and Doherty followed with his first homer of the year.

The shot over the left field wall was carried by swirling winds which aided hitters all afternoon. Doherty's home run was the first of the season at Blair Field, which is notorious for being a dead-zone for fly balls due to its wide open outfield and depth (348 feet) down the lines.

After the four-run fourth, it was all 49ers who showed their best performance at the plate by far this season. The Beach jumped all over Cal starter Ryland Sumner for five runs, and also fattened up on reliever Mark Gardener for five more. All told, 11 of the 12 batters CSULB sent to the plate got hits. "That was the first time we broke out and really swung the bats, " said Snow, "Overall this weekend, we took a step forward."