Reports From LBSU

Long Beach State turned three second-inning walks into five runs, and never relinquished the lead in a 10-5 defeat of Stanford in the final contest of the three-game series. Brennan Metzger, Kirk Singer and Jonathan Jones all had solo home runs for the Dirtbags.

Having scored just five runs in the first two games of the series, the Dirtbags came back with a strong offensive performance on Sunday, picking up ten runs on ten hits as the Cardinal pitching walked seven batters on the day.

Three of those walks came in the second inning as the Dirtbags opened up the game with a five-run inning. With one out, starter Mark Appel walked back-to-back batters to get a rally started, and the Dirtbags followed them up with three run-scoring hits to take a 3-0 lead. Then with the bases loaded, TJ Mittelstaedt singled to drive in two more.

After scoring an unearned run in the third inning, Stanford rallied with three runs in the fourth inning to cut the lead to one, with Tyler Gaffney picking up the final hit in the rally. Metzger answered with a solo home run in the bottom half for an insurance run, but the Cardinal came back with a solo homer of their own to cut the lead to 6-5.

The long ball action continued in the bottom half of the fifth with Singer hitting a solo shot to left center, giving Long Beach State a two-run edge. Dirtbags starter Branden Pinder turned the ball over to Eddie Magallon in the seventh, and the freshman responded by allowing one hit over the final three innings with five strikeouts to collect his first save.

Long Beach State added two more runs after a Stanford error in the seventh, and Jones’ second home run of the season in the eighth inning closed out the scoring for The Beach.

The Dirtbags face one more Pac-10 opponent on Wednesday, playing at USC at 7:15 p.m. before facing the rival Titans of Cal State Fullerton for three games over the weekend at Blair Field.