Ten is the number of defensive errors the Matadors committed in the first 13 games of the season while 12 is how many they recorded in the last four games.
Errors were the story of the weekend for the Cal State Northridge baseball team (10-7, 0-0 Big West) as they compiled more errors than they had all season, all in just four games.
Coach Matt Curtis was disappointed in the team’s defense and said one cannot expect to beat teams in Division I baseball by committing that many errors.
“We definitely have to clean that up. We took some good at-bats late in the game, we hit some balls hard that didn’t fall, but the game was lost in the first couple innings with the defense,” Curtis said. “We came out and we were clearly not ready to play and it showed up on the defensive side, but all weekend we weren’t where we needed to be.”
CSUN split the four-game series against the Lafayette Leopards (4-7) over the weekend, losing both the Friday opener and the Sunday series finale at Matador Field. Northridge won both games of Saturday’s double-header.
After acquiring momentum on Saturday’s victories, CSUN began Sunday’s game on the wrong foot. Matador starter Justen Gorski, who came into the game with a 2-0 record, committed a throwing error that put the lead off batter on base.
The batter, Rob Froio, eventually scored and the Leopards scored one more run before being retired. Lafayette was in front the rest of the game en route to a 5-3 victory.
The home team outhit the Leopards, 10-9, but the game featured four errors from the Matadors. Northridge had five situations where they had runners in scoring position, but they failed to capitalize on the opportunities.
The biggest threats for the Matadors came in the second and sixth innings. CSUN got its first two batters on base with no outs, but failed to chip away at Lafayette’s lead. Northridge did manage to tally a run in the sixth.
“We’re leaving a lot of runners on base, but it comes down to putting consistent at-bats together,” Curtis said. “We need to do a better job at getting more guys on base on a consistent basis.”
The Matadors managed to capture both Saturday games, 7-5, 7-6. These games took place at the MLB Urban Youth Academy in Compton, California.
Matador centerfielder Drew Muren recorded three RBIs, coupled with four hits and four runs for the two games. In the second game, catcher Steven Keller went 4-for-5 with four RBIs and three hits.
Leopard catcher A.J. Miller led the team with three RBIs and three hits for the double-header. Froio recorded four hits and four runs in eight at-bats on Saturday.
The Matadors committed a season-high five errors in what was arguably their worst defensive performance of the season on Friday’s 7-3 loss against Lafayette.
Infielder Tommy Simis, who was responsible for two of the five errors, said the defense was unacceptable.
“On defense and we didn’t hit as well as we wanted to. I have pretty negative feelings right now so we just need to put it behind us and play better,” Simis said.
Keller, who had a 10-game hit streak snapped on Friday, feels optimistic despite the defensive collapses.
“Last couple of games defensively sort of fumbled the ball a little bit, but I have faith that we’ll come back the rest of this week,” Keller said. “We’ll find our defensive place we just hit a rough spot for the series, but I think we’ll find it.”
