In the series finale against the Stanford Cardinal on Sunday, the San Jose State Spartans started hot out of the gate, and then kept on scoring, en route to a 14-4, 10-run rule victory. Left fielder and newly turned leadoff man Anthony Deeter led the way, going 3-for-4. Deeter led off the bottom of the first with a double and later scored before adding a two-out, two-run home run that ignited a seven-run rally in the second.
"That's one thing we've been working on is coming out ready to go to play that first inning. Sometimes we get ready to go in the third inning, " admitted Spartans' Head Coach Brett Ackerman. "We switched things up today, normally Deeter is hitting in the five or six hole for us, but we decided to make a lineup change and put him up top. It certainly benefited us today, he got on base and allowed us to do what we did offensively."
On the mound, Spartans' starter Robert Mellerski struggled a bit with his command, particularly when moving into his stretch. That said, he was able to limit the damage to just one run in the second inning, stranding runners with the bases loaded. He gave up another three runs in the third, but again stranded runners in scoring position, this time with guys on second and third to end the inning.
"His velocity looked pretty good coming out of the pen," remarked Spartans' catcher Adam Lopez. "He was pretty good with his curveball, did a good job keeping them off balance. He started to struggle later on, but he remained focused and disciplined, especially on their best hitter. Ultimately he battled today, did a great job competing.
The Spartans' seven-run, two-out rally started when No. 9 hitter Adolfo Cortes was hit by a pitch. Deeter followed up with his home run blast to left and on their way to the dugout afterward, Cortes got the bigger of the cheers from his teammates.
"It's a baseball tradition called the 'big leaguer' where we save the cheers for the home run hitter last, and so we make him think he's not getting any cheers and then we tackle him later," acknowledged Lopez on the initial lack of cheers for Deeter. "I've been playing ball for over 15 years and this is probably the best chemistry I've ever had on any team."
On the home run itself, Deeter admitted he was thinking ahead of time to be aggressive with his approach.
"That at bat I was thinking I was gonna swing at the first pitch, be aggressive," admitted the left fielder. "I saw the fastball that was up and in and I like that pitch. To be honest with you I thought it was just a pop fly, until I heard Dom [first-base coach Dominic Ackerman] yell 'get out ball! Get out ball!' and then I saw it go out and was pretty excited about it."
After the long rally was over, the Spartans were up 9-1. Stanford came back to make it 9-4 in the top of the third, but San Jose State made sure to keep tacking on runs. In their half of the third, they extended the lead back up to eight with a three-run inning of their own.
The offensive explosion from the Spartans wasn't the only key to the success though. San Jose played clean fundamental baseball, made the routine plays, stole bases, drew walks and executed a sacrifice fly for the first run of the game. Stanford on the other hand made a number of defensive errors and inexplicably ran into a double play in the top of the fifth. With one out and a runner on second, a line-drive single to right field ended up with the runner being thrown out by a mile at home plate, and after applying the tag, Lopez fired to second base to nail the back runner trying to move up an extra 90-feet to end the inning.
