2019 Mountain West Baseball Tournament: What You Need To Know
The road to the 2019 College World Series begins in Reno with the MWC baseball tournament. Here’s how to watch and what to watch for.
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Who will emerge from Reno?
It’s been an eventful season on the diamond in the Mountain West, but the field has been narrowed to four teams who will take the field starting Thursday in Reno. The winner will earn a chance to win their way to Omaha, but it doesn’t appear likely to be easy for anyone left standing. Here’s what you need to know.
MOUNTAIN WEST BASEBALL TOURNAMENT: Thursday, May 23 to Saturday, May 25 (or Sunday, May 26, if necessary)
WHERE: Don Weir Field at William Peccole Park; Reno, NV (3,000)
STREAM: Facebook, TheMW.com, or WatchStadium.com.
APPS: You can catch every tournament game by downloading the Stadium app from Google Play or the App Store, or you can download the Mountain West’s official app for Android and Apple.
WEBSITES: GoBulldogs.com, the official Fresno State athletics website | GoAztecs.com, the official San Diego State athletics website | NevadaWolfPack.com, the official Nevada athletics website | UNLVRebels.com, the official UNLV athletics website
The Bracket
The Teams
#1 Fresno State Bulldogs (35-14-1, 20-8-1 Mountain West)
Mike Batesole’s Bulldogs claimed the regular season crown for the first time since 2016 and come into the tournament riding high, having won four in a row and nine of their last ten down the stretch. Not only has this enabled the Diamond ‘Dogs to climb into Baseball America’s Top 25, they’ve left little doubt that they’re the most balanced team in the tournament.
Ryan Jensen has led the way on the mound all spring, winning a conference-best ten games while holding opponents to a .230 batting average and racking up 89 strikeouts with a 3.09 ERA in 84 1/3 innings. He’s hardly alone in providing the Bulldogs with pitching depth, though: Jamie Arias led the Mountain West with 11 saves and Davis Moore racked up more than a strikeout per inning across 14 starts. As a staff, Fresno State accumulated a 1.38 WHIP and a 2.57-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Don’t let that fool you into thinking the lineup is full of slouches, though. McCarthy Tatum finished second among MW hitters with 11 home runs, and he, J.T. Arruda and Zach Ashford all finished in the top seven in batting average. The team put up a .297/.384/.450 line, so while anything can happen in double-elimination, Fresno State should be considered the odds-on favorite.
#2 San Diego State Aztecs (32-23, 16-13 MW)
If you’re relatively new to Mountain West baseball, here’s rule number one: Underestimate the Aztecs at your own risk. Mark Martinez’s squad has won five of the last six tournaments dating back to 2013, so while they’ve stumbled a bit by dropping four of their last six to close the regular season, it shouldn’t surprise anyone to see them win out again.
Any hopes of doing so will probably depend on strong pitching. Adrian Mardueno led the conference with a 1.48 ERA and .180 batting average against in 60 2/3 innings, while Justin Goossen-Brown mustered a 3.45 ERA and 71 strikeouts in a MW-best 88 innings. Casey Schmitt, meanwhile, followed up a Freshman All-American campaign by pacing the Aztecs with eight saves and hitting .314 with five home runs in 194 at-bats for good measure.
The rest of the lineup, however, will need to put in some work for the Aztecs to survive. Their team slugging percentage, .396, was next-to-last in the Mountain West, and just three players — Schmitt, Chad Bible, and Julian Escobedo — hit at least five home runs. If Matt Rudick and his .403 on-base percentage can set the table early and often, though, the Aztecs can score runs in bunches.
#3 unlv rebels (27-27, 14-16 MW)
Put simply, Stan Stolte’s team hasn’t had a very good stretch run. UNLV has lost seven of nine games since April 30, including a serious thumping at the hands of Fresno State to close the regular season, but they remain a test case for how far one big star can carry a team.
That star, of course, is shortstop Bryson Stott, a surefire first-round pick in next month’s MLB Draft who has been every bit as good as advertised in 2019. He’s slashed an absurd .361/.489/.615 with 31 extra base hits and 15 stolen bases this spring.
One of the big questions, aside from Stott, is just how much power the Rebels lineup will bring to the tournament. They do pace the tournament field with 106 doubles but hit just 31 home runs as a team. Outfielder Max Smith provided some punch by hitting nine homers, but youngsters like Jack-Thomas Wold and James Gamble may need to pick it up for UNLV to hang around.
That the lineup may need to do the heavy lifting also speaks to the fact that the pitching staff enters tournament play with a team ERA, 5.76, that’s more than a run higher than anyone else here. Ryan Hare won seven games for UNLV with a 1.08 WHIP and .213 opponents’ batting average while Jackson Cofer has saved ten games, but the team as a whole coughed up 60 homers and struck out just 348 hitters in 481 innings.
#4 Nevada wolf pack (29-24, 14-16 MW)
J.T. Bruce’s Wolf Pack had to fight their way into the tournament, sweeping San Jose State and then getting help from the Spartans to overtake Air Force, but they might be the best proof that anything can happen in one game. After all, Nevada stole two games in a row from juggernaut Oregon State a month ago.
Outfielder Jaylon McLaughlin, who slashed .347/.396/.455 with 23 stolen bases in 27 attempts, is one player to watch. Weston Hatten is another because he can bring the thunder with his bat, slugging a team-best .564 with 26 extra base hits.
On the mound, the Wolf Pack may not be in the same league with SDSU and Fresno State but they can hold their own, especially on the back end. Grant Ford, Bradley Bonnenfant, and Cooper Powell all managed an ERA under 4.00 while striking out more than a batter per inning, so Nevada can keep games close and may just pull off a surprise if things break their way.
