Courtesy of Wichita State Athletics
WICHITA, Kan -- Caden Favors allowed just two hits over seven scoreless innings while matching his career high with 10 strikeouts as Wichita State bested Long Beach State 4-1 on Friday evening at Eck Stadium.
Favors (3-0) did not allow a baserunner to reach third base for a second consecutive outing, limiting the Dirtbags (9-2-1) to just five runners in total over his seven sparkling frames. The southpaw had to wiggle out of two jams, pitching around a walk and a single with one out in the second thanks to consecutive strikeouts, and then again stranding a walk and a single in the fifth by retiring the next three. Dating back to his start against Virginia on February 23, Favors has not allowed a run over his last 17.0 innings and has not allowed an earned run in his last 19.0 frames. He lowered his season ERA to 1.59.
Wichita State (8-4) found just enough offense to support Favors in the middle innings. After Long Beach State starter Myles Patton (1-1) flummoxed the Shockers through the first four innings, WSU touched up the left-hander for a pair of runs in the fifth to break the scoreless deadlock. Darnell Parker Jr. rifled an RBI double to score Jordan Rogers, who had led off the inning with a single and moved to second on a passed ball. One batter later, Mauricio Millan plated Parker Jr. with an RBI single through a drawn-in infield, doubling the advantage to 2-0.
The Shockers added to their cushion with two more runs in the sixth to make it 4-0. Ryan Callahan led off the inning with a single, moved to second on a sacrifice bunt and scored when Rogers' infield single was thrown away by Patton. Another Long Beach State error on a pickoff attempt moved Rogers to third, and he would score on Camden Johnson's infield single to cap the rally.
Caleb Anderson worked a 1-2-3 eighth before running into trouble with one out in the ninth, allowing three consecutive baserunners, the last of which produced a run via an RBI single from Connor Charpiot. But Anderson bounced back to strike out Adrian Lopez and got Alex Champagne to bounce back to the mound to close out the victory.
The Shockers out-hit the Dirtbags 8-4 and committed two errors to Long Beach State's four. Rogers and Parker Jr. both recorded two-hit games to pace the Shockers attack.
Wichita State and Long Beach State will continue the series on Saturday afternoon. First pitch from Eck Stadium is scheduled for 2:00 pm.