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Sheldon Lee had the best outing of his career as he went seven strong innings to guide the Dons to the 7-0 win over Nevada on Tuesday afternoon.
"It thought Sheldon was great today," San Francisco head coach
Nino Giarratano said. "Anytime your guys goes out there and throws seven innings, strikes out 10, walks two… anytime we pitch like that it gives the offense to get on track."
Lee made his third start of the season and quickly developed a rhythm. He struck out two in the first inning and allowed only three base runners in the first three innings. Between the third and seventh innings, he retired 11 consecutive batters while striking out six.
Nevada finally had a threat in the seventh. Lee allowed a single and a walk and then an overthrow from
Justin McCullough moved the runners up and set up runners at second and third with one out.
Lee buckled down and struck out Joe Setum and Jordan Dunatov to get out of the inning and hold onto the six-run lead.
He finished the afternoon after seven shutout innings and allowed four hits while striking out 10, both career-highs. The 10 strikeouts also matched the most for a Dons pitcher this season (
Abe Bobb, Feb. 21 vs. Cal State Fullerton).
"Constant improvement by Sheldon," Giarratano said. "Those are the kinds of starts we've been looking for. I'm glad we found it with him, I'm glad he got on track. He did the same thing against Oregon on a Tuesday… Really happy for him and really happy for the pitching staff to put up nine zeros."
Lee has thrown 16 innings as a starting pitcher this season and has allowed no runs.
The Dons will try to use this game as a springboard when they take on No. 19 Pepperdine for a three-game series beginning on Thursday in Malibu.
"We needed to rest the bullpen and we needed to get guys healthy so that we had a chance this weekend to really be productive," Giarratano said. "That was perfect. Sheldon gave us those seven innings. The one inning by Logan [West]. The one inning by Thomas [Cox]. It kind of saved us and gave us the opportunity to be fresh going into Thursday.
"We need to play our best baseball on Thursday."
Already leading 3-0 in the sixth inning, the Dons broke the game open. With
Michael Kathan at third and two outs,
Michael Eaton singled to give the Dons a four-run lead.
Bradley Zimmer followed with a double into the rightfield corner to bring Eaton home to make it 5-0.
Nico Giarratano extended the inning with a two-strike single to left which allowed Zimmer to score and the Dons took a commanding 6-0 lead.
"I thought we put together some good at bats in the sixth," Giarratano said. "I thought Nico's at bat was a great at bat on the base hit to left. First time he's stayed in there on the breaking ball and taken it the other way. Bradley wasn't sharp today but was plenty good enough.
"We capitalized on some miscues by them."
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