Fresno State baseball: Ricky Tyler Thomas throws 2-hitter to beat San Jose State

Ricky Tyler Thomas, in the most dominant performance of his Fresno State career, pitched a two-hitter, and Joe Prior came off the bench to hit two home runs as the Bulldogs defeated San Jose State 6-0 on Friday night in a Mountain West baseball series opener at Beiden Field.

Thomas (6-3), a sophomore left-hander from San Diego, struck out four and didn’t walk a batter while facing only two batters over the minimum. He threw 59 of 87 pitches for strikes. Arriving with a conference second-best 2.17 ERA, he now has struck out 71 against only 10 walks in 71 1/3 innings to lower his ERA to 1.89.

For all of Thomas’ brilliance, he shared the spotlight with an unlikely source on a cool, windy night.

Prior, a junior from Los Alamitos, came in with one home run in three Bulldogs seasons and was batting .184 (9 for 49) this season.

In a scoreless game in the bottom of the fifth, he followed Ryan Dobson’s two-out single with a pinch two-run homer to left off Spartans reliever Zach Tanner.

Not finished, Prior homered again with two outs in the seventh for a 3-0 lead.

Fresno State (25-14, 13-6) gave Thomas far more insurance than he would need against San Jose State (11-26, 4-15) with a three-run eighth on Scott Silva’s single, Jesse Medrano’s hit by pitch and consecutive two-out, RBI singles by Nick Warren, Korby Batesole and Dobson.

The Bulldogs improved their all-time series lead against the Spartans to 159-84. The series will resume at 6:05 p.m. Saturday before closing with a 1:05 p.m. start Sunday.

This story was originally published April 22, 2016 at 10:34 PM with the headline "Fresno State baseball: Ricky Tyler Thomas throws 2-hitter to beat San Jose State."