After a disappointing 2023 season that saw Cal Poly Baseball finish with a 21-35 overall record and an 11-19 Big West Conference record, the Mustangs will look to get back to the top of the Big West Conference.
37 of the 58 games on the 2022 schedule are to be played at Baggett Stadium and include teams from four of five Power Five conferences.
The Mustangs’ first five games are at home to the start of the season, where the teams hosts SEC opponent Missouri in a four-game series and then North Dakota State in the midweek game shortly after.
Missouri finished the 2023 season with a 30-24 overall record, and North Dakota State finished with a 23-30 overall record and a 16-7 conference record.
Cal Poly will then make the trip down to Austin to take on the University of Texas, the second-winningest program in college baseball history, in a three-game set.
Texas finished the previous season ranked in the Top 25 and made it as far as the Stanford Super-Regional and just missed the opportunity to compete in the College World Series.
Some of the more notable teams that will be making the trip to San Luis Obispo include Utah, Ohio State, UNLV before starting Big West conference play with CSU Northridge, Blue-Green rival UC Santa Barbara and 2023 Big West Champions Cal State Fullerton.
They’ll face all of those teams in the month of March where they have a stretch of 15 straight home games.
The Mustangs were scheduled to host UNLV a season ago, but the series was canceled due to rain before playing a non-conference double-header against UC Santa Barbara.
The month of April sees the Mustangs most notably hosting defending Mountain West regular season champion San Diego State in a two-game set and NCAA tournament participant Santa Clara in a midweek game.
The month of May sees Cal Poly on the road for most of the month, but they wrap up the season against Big West foe Long Beach State in a three-game series.
The Mustangs are returning all but one offensive starter from a season ago, with junior catcher Ryan Stafford and senior first baseman Joe Yorke leading the charge.
The pitching staff is going to look a lot different after the departures of right-handed starter Bryce Warrecker and righty reliever Derek True, who were drafted by the New York Yankees and Houston Astros, respectively. Lefty starter Travis Weston also departed after graduating, with right-handed reliever Kyle Scott transferring to Oregon State.
No matter who’s on the field for the Mustangs, they’ll try to climb back atop the Big West Conference and play their way into the NCAA tournament.