San Diego State baseball (20-18) combined timely and dominant hitting to defeat crosstown rivals, UC San Diego (15-17), 9-1 on Tuesday night.
Sophomore righty Carson Johnson (1-3, 7.94 ERA) started for the Aztecs, while righty Evan Seneres was the starter for the Tritons.
Tyce Peterson’s bat continues to shine
The Oregon State transfer has adapted very well to San Diego. Through 38 games, he leads the Aztecs in almost every offensive category: batting average, on-base and slugging percentage, hits, doubles and home runs.
“My approach is being on time for the heater and adjusting to the offspeed,” he said. “That’s been really working for me and just having 100% confidence every time I go in the box.”
His two-hit performance, including his 10th home run of the season, marked the 12th of his last 13 games, where he has gotten a hit. The game was his 17th multi-hit game of the season and he is the first Aztec to hit 10 home runs in a season since 2018, when Jordan Verdon hit 12 home runs.
“Even if I feel like I don’t have it during a game, I trick my brain and tell myself that I got it,” Peterson said. “I need to go out there and compete.”
Offense continues to be potent
Every Aztec in the starting lineup got a hit in a strong offensive performance, as they scored 9 runs on 14 hits, with junior outfielders Jack Jackson and Zane Kelly both hitting home runs.
Junior second baseman Dawson Santana and freshman first baseman Max Farrell both drove in one run, while having multi-hit games as well.
“I loved the energy in the dugout,” head coach Kevin Vance said. “The focus level was elite and that’s what we’re looking for. The lineup had a lot of scrappy hits, and while we did strike out a lot, we had some good quality at-bats all day.”
It was their 12th out of their last 14 games where they have hit a home run, and their 18th game with 10 hits or more.
Carson Johnson’s rebound performance and shutdown bullpen
After being bumped out of the starting rotation, Johnson served as a reliever for the weekend series and a midweek starter. The righty pitched five scoreless innings, giving up two hits and no walks with five strikeouts.
He faced trouble in the fifth inning as he gave up two singles to put runners on first and second with no outs, but a fly out, followed by back-to-back strikeouts to get out of the jam with an emotional fist bump and yell.
“[The outing] was huge for him,” Vance said. “It’s only a matter of time, continuing to get him back out there, making adjustments and pitching with conviction.”
Johnson is now on a streak of three straight scoreless innings and earned his second win with the Scarlet and Black, his first as a starter, to improve to 2-3 and lower his ERA to 6.75.
“Baseball is all about in-season adjustments and we’ve made a couple of those,” Vance said. “He has done a good job sticking to it, trusting his preparation and then taking it out into the game.”
Along with Johnson’s performance, the bullpen was lights out, allowing one run in four innings and giving up no hits. Senior righty Aidan Russel pitched two scoreless innings with a strikeout. Junior righty Simon Lemke faced control troubles in the eighth with one walk and two hit-by-pitches to load the bases with one out, prompting Vance to visit the mound.
“I told him to take a deep breath and to change his sights a little bit,” he said. “He was missing up in the zone, so I told him to think bottom of the zone here and throw the ball lower.”
Lemke gave up a lone run on a sacrifice fly and got a groundout to end the inning. Junior righty Colton LaFave pitched around a walk and a hit-by-pitch, with two strikeouts and a fly out to right to end the game.
With the win, the Aztecs improve to 20-18, while the Tritons fall to 15-17. SDSU travels up to Long Beach State for another midweek matchup on April 16 with a first pitch at 6 p.m.
