How do I know summer is really here? It’s usually when the SLO Blues kick-off their home schedule. 

This season is already two weeks old for the Blues, who have started the season 6-1 after their Sunday afternoon win over the SoCal Halos. 

Cooper Benson looked good on Saturday night. By Owen Main

The Blues schedule includes 36 home games throughout the summer. Two of those are fireworks games. This week, the team takes to the road for the first time this year against the Conejo Oaks. Over the weekend, they’ll return home to play three against the San Francisco Seals Friday through Sunday. 

The first fireworks game is July 3rd and the final one is July 21st. Tickets are just $8 and children 12 and under are free. 

Local as they come

With players still coming in from all over the country, the Blues often have to use some talented local players and this year is no different. Junior (high school junior) left-handed pitcher Cooper Benson, an Arizona State commit, started for the Blues on Saturday night and looked solid against an all-star team from the local men’s league. 

Other local players have joined or will join the club as soon as school is over. Some local players include Dan Beavers (RHP, Morro Bay High School, Chico State), Renn Duncan (C, Mission Prep, Westmont), Andy Garretson (1B, Templeton High School, Cal State San Marcos), Nathaniel Javine (C, Atascadero High School, Oregon Tech), Jeremy Jess (RHP, San Luis Obispo High School, Pomona-Pitzer), Mac Lardner (LHP, Templeton High School, Gonzaga), Jake Niezen (RHP, San Luis Obispo High School, Western Carolina), and Robbie Silva (1B, Arroyo Grande High School, San Francisco State). 

Part-time local players include Benson (SLO High School), Steven Chippman (Cuesta), Noah Cracknell (SLO High School), Connor Maydole (IF/C, SLO High School, Cal State Monterey Bay), Marco Murillo (P/IF, SLO High School, Lewis and Clark), Nick Pagan (Cuesta), Hunter Reade (Cuesta), and Justin Wear (Cuesta).

Cal Poly players include catcher Myles Emmerson, pitchers Craig Colen, Austin Dondanville and Bobby Ay, and incoming freshman infielder Tate Samuelson from Serra high school in San Diego. Current Mustangs will start playing summer ball once their school year ends with finals the week of June 12th.

Photos by Owen Main. For more photos, click here. 

After spending the school year as the play by play announcer for Cal State San Marcos and a Public Address announcer for UCSD sports, Seth Smith is spending the summer calling baseball games here in San Luis Obispo for the Blues. We talked a little Blues baseball, Seth’s history in the CCL, some UCSD sports, and other random things in this edition of the podcast.

A former college pitcher at Fresno State, Jamie Clark has been around the Blues organization for over a decade. When Chal Fanning left for a job at Austin Peay this past offseason, Clark, who was a board member at the time, stepped in as his replacement.

Clark talked about what it’s like replacing a legend, how he made it from the Central Valley to the Central Coast, and his impressions of where the SLO Blues are headed.

Center fielder Ryan Sluder (Oklahoma State) launches a deep fly ball early in Tuesday’s game. By Owen Main

Bobby Ay gave up one run in six innings and Dustin Williams doubled home the game winning run in the seventh inning as the SLO Blues beat the Santa Paula Halos 3-2 in a California Collegiate League game Tuesday night.

It was Mardi Gras night at Sinsheimer Stadium and Ay, an incoming freshman at Cal Poly, was generally sharp, wiggling his way out of a number of jams to keep Santa Paula to a single run on eight hits. Ay only struck out two, but didn’t walk any batters.

In the top of the seventh Santa Paula tied the game at two runs apiece, but Williams’ two-out double in the bottom of the frame cemented the Blues’ lead.

The Blues host five more games at Sinsheimer before they also play host to the CCL Tournament, which begins Friday, July 31st.

Photos by Owen Main

Ryan Sluder is thrown out at home plate in the first inning of Saturday’s game. By Owen Main

After two tough California Collegiate League losses earlier this week, the San Luis Obispo Blues erased a 1-0 first-inning deficit and scored four times in the seventh inning to cruise to a 10-4 victory over the visiting Los Angeles Brewers. The victory gives the Blues an outside shot at making the CCL playoffs. To do so, they have to overtake the Conejo Oaks in the standings.

Korey Anderson gave up 4 runs in 5 1/3 innings to secure the win for the Blues. Tanner Gardner notched three hits and Ryan Long knocked in three runs in with a double in the seventh inning to break the game wide-open.

The Blues finish their three-game weekend series with the Brewers as incoming Cal Poly freshman Bobby Ay is scheduled to take the mound for the home team.

Photos by Owen Main

Incoming Cal Poly freshman Michael Clark was throwing, according to a few people I talked to, in the low 90’s last weekend. By Owen Main

For local college baseball fans, this weekend was an opportunity to see five players from next year’s roster compete on the same field.

The San Luis Obispo Blues’ roster boasts four of Larry Lee’s players: senior, John Schuknecht; senior, Brett Barbier; incoming freshman pitcher, Bobby Ay; incoming freshman pitcher, Nigel Ward. This past weekend, the Blues hosted two Cal Poly pitching prospects who were part of the Menlo Park Legends’ roster. They were Michael Clark and Thomas Triantos.

Friday night, Schuknecht and Barbier both started for the Blues. When Clark got in the game for the Legends, the first batter he faced was Barbier. Triantos pitched two solid innings on Saturday for Menlo Park and Ay started Sunday’s game for the Blues with Larry Lee in the crowd looking on.

Barbier talked with me about how the summer was going and what it was like to catch some of the incoming freshmen right now. Click here to listen to our conversation. 

I gues it’s kind of like spring training — if spring training were seven months before the season started and if not all the players were on the same team they’d be on later.

OK, fine, it’s probably not a lot like spring training, but maybe it’s the closest thing a die-hard college baseball fan in this county will find. For Cal Poly baseball fans in SLO, last weekend was a good one.

Behind another offensive explosion, the SLO Blues beat the Valley Bears to sweep the three-game weekend series on Sunday 17-1. After winning the first game of the series 1-0 the Blues outscored the Bears 39-1 in the final two games of the series.

The Blues hit the road on Wednesday night, traveling to Santa Paula to face the Halos, before returning to SLO for a weekend CCL series against the Walnut Creek Crawdads. Game times Friday through Sunday are 6:00, 6:00, and 1:00 at Sinsheimer Stadium.

If you’ve been at the games during the first few weeks, you might see some fresh faces this weekend. With colleges finishing their quarter or semester, a number of players will be joining the squad in the next week or so. The Cal Poly baseball players who are scheduled to be on the team will be some of the last to arrive since school doesn’t get out until well into June.

For a complete roster, you can click here.

Photos by Owen Main

The Blues haven’t lost in their first seven games. By Owen Main

On Saturday night, the San Luis Obispo Blues beat the Valley Bears for the second straight evening. In stark contrast to their 1-0 win on Friday, Saturday’s game opened up early. Eight first-inning runs quickly turned into 22 for the game, which was called after the 7th inning.

Saturday was also the first fireworks night for the home team, who will have two more later this year.

John Sparks went six innings on Saturday to back up Troy Prober’s seven-inning performance the on Friday.

The final game of the weekend happens today (Sunday) at 1:00pm at Sinsheimer Stadium.

Photos from Friday’s game by Owen Main

Behind a solid outing by lefty John Sparks, the SLO Blues beat the San Francisco Seals 11-5 on Saturday night at Sinsheimer Stadium.

With the win Blues are now 2-0 on the season.

Sparks — who was on a pitch limit according to the Blues play-by-play man — was very good. His Chris Sale-like delivery kept the Seals off-balance for just two runs through the first five innings.

With some significant funk in his delivery, John Sparks got through the first five innings relatively efficiently. By Owen Main

The Blues broke the game open in the fourth. Clutch hitting and some bases-loaded walks added up to a big six-run frame for the home side en route to the win.

Strawn goes down

Tyler Strawn, the third batter of the game for the Seals, was hit in the face with a pitch. Play was stopped as Strawn stayed down near home plate for about 10-15 minutes while trainers attended to him. Later, Strawn was later taken away in an ambulance and we really hope he will be all right.

As a random aside, I just finished a CPR/First Aid training on Thursday at work. From what little I know, it seemed like the Blues training staff did a really top-notch job handling the first aid until the paramedics arrived. I think they also had some help from a doctor and nurse who came down onto the field as Strawn was being attended to.

Thanks to everyone who responded so quickly

 Ay pitches in San Luis Obispo

In what may be his first outing in San Luis Obispo, future Cal Poly pitcher Bobby Ay pitched the eighth inning for the Blues. The high school senior who is probably a few weeks from graduating had a little bit of a rough outing, but managed to hold things together to give up just one run. Ay walked a batter, gave up a hit, and struck out three in his single inning of work.

More Cal Poly players will join Ay as Cal Poly’s spring quarter winds down and now that baseball season is officially over for the Mustangs. Along Ay, current Cal Poly students scheduled to play for the Blues include catcher Brett Barbier, Connor O’Hare, Kyle Peterson, John Schuknecht, and fellow incoming freshman Nigel Ward. Burton DeKoning is also on the team, which brings me to the next section here… .

DeKoning gets his first shot

Cal Poly football linebacker and baseball hopeful Burton DeKoning got his first action of the season. DeKoning walked in his first at-bat and was thrown out trying to steal second base. In his second at-bat, DeKoning singled home a run as the Blues began to extend their lead.

Here’s my post from earlier this month about DeKoning and his goal to play both football and baseball at Cal Poly next year.

The Blues are now halfway through their four-game series with the Seals. The two teams will finish the series with a pair of day games. First pitches are scheduled for 2:00 on Sunday and 1:00 on Monday.

Photos by Owen Main

In this short solo podcast, Owen tries to talk himself into not overreacting to the Dodgers recent debacle in San Francisco. Also, some local baseball topics are discussed.