Fresno State baseball: Bulldogs win on wild ending

The Fresno State baseball team avoided a weekend series sweep amid one of the wildest finishes in Bulldogs history.

UC Riverside’s Yeager Taylor appeared to hit a game-tying, three-run homer off Fresno State reliever Dominic Topoozian in the top of the ninth.

But as he rounded second base in a sprint, Taylor unknowingly passed up a Riverside base runner who was initially on first base – resulting in an out and wiping off one run.

With Taylor’s homer reduced to two runs, Fresno State escaped with a 5-4 victory Sunday at Beiden Field at Bennett Stadium.

“That was just nuts,” Bulldogs coach Mike Batesole said. “Every day you come to the ballpark and you see something. And there it was.”

Taylor, whose shot in the ninth sailed just to the right and about 10 feet beyond the 400-feet marker on the center-field wall, said he was sprinting the bases because he thought he had hit a double.

“I was just looking at the outfield, thinking my guy was halfway or three quarters of the way” to third, Taylor said. “I had no idea I had passed him until I passed him.”

The fault is shared by Riverside’s Cade Peters, who was on first base at the time of the home run.

Though it’s not exactly clear why, Peters stood on second base as the home run cleared the wall and when Taylor ran past him.

“A lot of emotions on my mind when I saw that ball hit,” said Topoozian, who was credited with a three-inning save. “I was like, ‘No, no no!’

“Then I looked at my shortstop Korby Batesole and he showed me like, ‘He passed the runner! He passed the runner!’ And then I was like, ‘Wow!’ ”

Under Rule 8 Section 5M of the NCAA rulebook: If a batter while running the bases … passes a preceding runner, the batter is out.

Within seconds, rowdy cheers in front of the Highlanders dugout were drowned out by a roar from Fresno State fans.

And an anxious Batesole, standing outside of the Bulldogs dugout and about 15 feet from the third-base line, nodded in approval as the umpires signaled the ruling.

Instead of a three-run homer that would’ve tied the score at 5-5, Taylor’s hit was reduced to a two-run single with Riverside still down a run.

Topoozian then induced a grounder to short to end the game.

“Had a base runner who tagged that shouldn’t have tagged, and the guy who hit the home run passed him,” UC Riverside coach Troy Percival said. “That’s the rule of the game. Got to live with it.”

Percival, the former Anaheim Angels closer who pitched 14 years in the majors, called the finish the oddest he’s ever seen.

“That’s the game; we’ve got to be smarter,” Percival said. “We can’t make those mistakes.”

Fresno State (3-4) snapped a four-game losing streak and avoided a three-game sweep to UC Riverside (4-2).

The series began with the Bulldogs losing 4-3 in 18 innings Friday despite amassing 29 strikeouts – the second most in NCAA history.

Then Fresno State fell 6-4 on Saturday, prompting a frustrated Batesole to publicly criticize his offense in part for “taking selfish at-bats.”

“This has been anythingbut a normal season to this point,” Batesole said.

This story was originally published February 26, 2017 at 7:39 PM with the headline "Fresno State baseball: Bulldogs win on wild ending."