The Cal State Stanislaus Warriors used two big innings to blow open a tight contest en route to a 9-4 pounding of the SF State Gators on a beautiful, sun-splashed afternoon on April 15 at Maloney Field.

Trailing just 2-0, the wheels fell off of the Gators’ wagon in the top of the fifth inning, as Roberto Torres’ game-long control problems and a simple miscommunication combined to allow the Warriors to take charge of the contest.

After hitting Chad Rolen and walking Chad Gordon to start the inning, Torres and shortstop Aaron Garcia attempted to pick off Rolen at second.

“It was supposed to be a pickoff play,” Garcia said. “I was at second base when the ball was hit, and I didn’t have time to react to it.”

Garcia, expecting a pickoff play that never materialized, was out of position when Warrior catcher Pete Hernandez hit a perfect double-play ball to short. However, Garcia couldn’t adjust quickly enough to the ball, and it shot between his legs for a deflating and costly error. Rolen and Gordon raced around the bases to score, as two potential outs became two runs.

The Warriors teed off on Torres the rest of the inning, scoring two more times to expand their lead to 6-0. They would also knock around Gator reliever Jacob Kougl in the top of the sixth, adding three more runs to make the score 9-0.

Torres (1-7), who is SF State’s career leader in strikeouts and innings pitched, struggled with location and control throughout his five innings of work.

“I was a little off today,” Torres said. “I did leave some balls up. You can’t do that against a team like Stanislaus. They have a couple of .400 hitters (in their lineup).”

Despite reaching as high as 91 mph on the radar, Torres couldn’t consistently locate his fastball or slider as he plunked two batters and walked four over five innings.

“Bobby hung (pitches to) a lot of hitters, and when that happens, you are going to give them pitches to hit,” said head coach Matt Markovich. “When you do that to a good hitting team and give them pitches to hit and fall behind in the count, there’s not much you can do.”

While the Warriors were cashing in their scoring opportunities, the Gators were never able to string together hits against Warrior pitcher Marshall Beyer (3-2). Despite only topping out at 78 mph, the lefty managed to use his fastball and curve to squash the Gators.

“I think we were hitting the ball pretty good all day, but the thing was, we were hitting it right at people,” said Gator right fielder Nick Taminich, who went 3-for-4 with a run scored and one driven in. “We had opportunities and runners on base; we just couldn’t come up with the clutch hit.”

While both teams had ample opportunities to score, the Gators were unable to take advantage, as they stranded 10 runners. In contrast the Warriors scored four of their runs with two outs.

To their credit, the Gators didn’t quit.

“We were getting our asses kicked,” Garcia said. “It’s (a matter of) pride. We’re not just going to lie down and take it.”

Even though the Gators had several scoring chances throughout the first four innings, they weren’t able to score off Beyer until the sixth inning, when Carlos Medina sent Beyer’s offering high and deep over the left field wall for the Gators’ first run.

Down 9-1, the Gators finally strung together some hits, scoring one more run in the seventh, thanks to an RBI single off the bat of left fielder Kris Gibson, and two more in the eighth on run-scoring singles by Taminich and second baseman Bryan Supnet.

The game began ominously as Warriors second baseman Chad Gordon launched Torres’ second pitch of the game over the right-centerfield wall to give Stanislaus an early 1-0 lead.

Beyer gave up two runs and 10 hits over seven innings to pick up the win. Torres surrendered five hits and six runs, three earned.

“It seems like we’re always in the game,” Taminich said. “But why do we have to come back? We should be on them from the start.”

While the Gators sleep-walked through the first six innings against the Warriors on Friday’s game, they made up for it during a rematch in Stanislaus on Saturday, splitting the doubleheader. The Gators won the first game 9-5, but dropped the second game 6-5.

“We’ve been playing well lately and figured we would go on the field and do it again,” Markovich said. “But when you don’t bring emotion and passion to anything you do, you’re just kind of going through the motions, and that’s what happened Friday. That and bad pitching.”