Improved pitching could be the difference for Lobos

Under normal circumstances Ray Birmingham and the University of New Mexico baseball team don’t mind mixing it up in a slugfest.

The 10th-year Lobo coach is well-known as a hitting guru, and his teams annually rank among the national leaders in runs scored. Such is the case again in 2017 with UNM averaging 8.6 runs per contest.

But this weekend’s home series against Air Force is atypical. The Lobos (26-19-1 overall, 16-3-1 Mountain West) and Falcons (23-20, 10-13) both feature potent offenses, and Birmingham wants his pitching staff to be the difference.

“We need to step up our pitching the rest of the way,” Birmingham said. “You can’t expect to keep winning 12-10 games and get where we’re hoping to go. It’s time for our staff to start holding people down and

Air Force will be a good test, because those guys can swing the bats.”

The numbers bear Birmingham out. The Falcons lead the Mountain West with a .343 batting average this season (UNM is second at .314) and have the league’s top three individual hitters in Bradley Haslam (.404), Tyler Zabojnik (.394) and Adam Groesbeck (.381). Air Force averages 8.8 runs per game.

What’s more, the Falcons have a lot to play for this weekend. They currently stand fourth in the MWC race but lead three other teams (UNLV, Nevada and San Jose State) by just one game in the loss column. Only the top four finishers advance to this season’s MWC tournament.

But Air Force has pitching issues, ranking last in the conference in ERA (7.01). UNM ranks second at 5.53 and has generally pitched well on weekends.

UNM enters tonight’s series opener in first place in the Mountain West, 3½ games ahead of second-place San Diego State. But with nine league games remaining, Birmingham wants to see his team start finding its postseason form.

“We need to come out and battle this weekend,” he said, “because Air Force will. Those kids defend our country and are the reason I sleep well at night, but they tend to keep me up at night when we play them. Our pitchers need to be on their games this weekend.”