Here’s who stepped up to fill gaps for Fresno State in baseball season-opening series

Fresno State showed it still has plenty of thump left in its offense and pitching to spare, too, in winning a season-opening series against UC Irvine.

The Bulldogs rallied to beat the Anteaters 12-10 Sunday afternoon. Fresno State trailed 9-3 in the third inning and it was 10-6 going to the bottom of the eighth.

That’s when the Bulldogs erupted for six runs, a rally highlighted by Nate Thimjon’s two-run homer and two batters later Zach Presno’s go-ahead, two-run blast.

Thimjon, Presno and Jeff Jamison each had two homers on the weekend.

On the mound, Fresno State got quality starts Friday night from Jaime Arias (six innings, three hits, one run in a 3-1 Bulldogs win) and Saturday afternoon from Oscar Carvajal (six innings, three runs allowed before the bullpen got busted in a 12-6 UC Irvine win).

Kevin Larson pitched the ninth Friday for the save, then came back with two innings Sunday for the win.

Not bad for a team that won 40 games and reached the NCAA Tournament Stanford Regional final then had eight players selected in the Major League Baseball draft including six in the first 15 rounds.

And not bad against a program that has been to two College World Series in the last 11 years. The Anteaters were coming off a second-place finish in the Big West and returned an MLB-quality starter in Trenton Denholm, the Friday night loser.

Fresno State gets another test Feb. 20-22 when it hosts Washington, a 2018 CWS program that went 28-24, 12-17 in the Pac-12 last year.