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In terms of the Long Beach State Dirtbags’ recipe for success under first-year coach TJ Bruce, two of the most important ingredients are efficient pitching and reliable contributions from underclassmen.
The Dirtbags were certainly cooking on Friday night when a total team effort helped deliver a 6-3 win over Michigan on Bohl Diamond at Blair Field. Starting pitcher Kellan Montgomery picked up his third win in as many starts while three freshmen at the bottom of the lineup sparked the offense.
Designated hitter Luke Taylor, left fielder Matt Toomey and catcher Efren Ortega delivered back-to-back-to-back RBI in the second inning to give the Dirtbags (5-4) a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
“I don’t make the lineup off of age and I don’t make the lineup off of scholarship money,” Bruce said. “A lot of it is matchups but more it’s who has been doing the work. This team works, and these guys need at bats. This jump (to college level) is a big deal. This freshman group is super talented.”
“I think we all just work together as a team and just pass the baton and do our jobs when the opportunity comes,” said Toomey, who was the only Dirtbag with two hits.
“Toomey is one of our most athletic players and best runners,” Bruce said. “I think we haven’t even seen half of what Matt Toomey is and what he’s going to be. I think he’s super special.”
Montgomery reached the sixth inning for the first time this season (5.1 IP, 4 H, ER, 7 K, 3 BB) and 59 of his 92 pitchers were strikes. The junior has won all three of his starts with 14 strikeouts and six walks in 15 innings.
“I thought (Montgomery) was efficient,” Bruce said. “There were times he had some lapses in the middle innings but he did a really good job pitching out of problems. That’s just part of learning and that’s the part of the season. He’s our Friday night guy, he’s our ace. We’re going to ride with him.”
Michigan stranded a runner in each of the first five innings against Montgomery, who had to pitch around some back luck while getting some help from his defense. Multiple Wolverine hits were weak contact or came with a funny hop past an infielder, but Montgomery was also fortunate to have center fielder Alex Champagne track down a couple hard hit balls to center field, and third baseman Dylan Lina made a heads up play in the fourth inning to come home with a ground ball to cut down a runner. Ortega also made a nice quick lateral move to apply the tag, and also made a nice play to track down a foul ball against the backstop in the seventh.
“(Ortega) is as good a freshman catcher as I’ve seen in a long time,” Bruce said.
“Everybody had a part in it,” Montgomery said of the win. “Everybody just did their job and that’s all we need to do. It’s 9 vs. 1, you don’t have to do anything too fancy and let the guys work.”
In the bottom of the second inning, Lina led off and was hit by a pitch before first baseman Connor Charpiot drove a full count pitch down the left field line for a double. With both runners in scoring position, Taylor drove in the first run with a single up the middle, and Toomey brought home the second run with a double off the wall in left center field. Ortega’s ground out RBI plated Taylor to keep the rally going, and right fielder Kyle Ashworth brought home Toomey with a sacrifice bunt RBI to cap the scoring in the frame 4-0.
“It’s kind of cool me and my roommate (Toomey) got back to back hits and we hadn’t been in the game at the same time yet,” said Taylor, who is working his way back from Tommy John surgery.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, the Dirtbags didn’t need a hit to add a pair of runs. Champagne was hit by the second pitch of the inning and then shortstop Armando Briseno drew a walk. Line laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt to move the runners over, and Charpiot sent the first pitch he saw to right field for an easy RBI sacrifice fly to plate Champagne. Briseno would also come around to score on a wild pitch to push the lead to 6-1.
Dirtbags reliever Albert Roblez gave up an RBI double when he replaced Montgomery in the sixth inning, and the first two batters reached in the seventh inning. However, the UNLV transfer struck out three consecutive batters with just 10 pitches to get out of the jam.
Roblez (2.2 IP, 3 H, ER, 6 K, 2 BB) gave way to sophomore Owen Geiss who pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning for his first save.
The Dirtbags had similar promising success the last time they won a Friday night game at home, but ended up losing that series to another Big 10 team in Northwestern, so Bruce invoked some old advice from his mentors during the postgame huddle with his team.
“This is a Dave Snow and Mike Weathers thing, ‘Don’t take the cheese.’,” he said. “We won but we can’t take the cheese. We’ve got to come back to work tomorrow.”
The weekend series continues Saturday 6 p.m.
