University of Washington
Santa Clara
Husky Baseball Kicks Off 2023 at Santa Clara
February 17, 2023 | Baseball
QUICK HITS
โข Washington kicks off the 2023 season and its first season under head coach Jason Kelly with four games in the Golden State at Santa Clara.
โข The Huskies will remain in the Bay Area through the following week, visiting San Jose State Feb. 23-26.
โข Originally scheduled for Feb. 17, Washington's season opener against SCU was shifted to Feb. 18 as the series was forced to be moved to Mission College.
โข It is the seventh consecutive season that the Huskies begin a season with a road series in California. The streak started with the 2017 campaign, the last time UW and the Broncos squared off in a weekend series.
โข Washington was picked to finish seventh in the Pac-12 Preseason Coaches Poll.
โข Johnny Tincher represented the Huskies on the Preseason All-Pac-12 Team. Tincher is one of five catchers named to the vaunted list.
โข Washington will look to pick up where it left off in 2022, winning 12 straight games to close the regular season.
KELLY ERA COMMENCES
Washington begins its first season under the direction of head coach Jason Kelly, who replaced Lindsay Meggs following the long-time Husky skipper's retirement. Kelly is a familiar face around Montlake, serving as UW's pitching coach for seven seasons from 2013-19. Kelly mentored 15 MLB draft selections during his first stint in Seattle and helped lead the Dawgs to the 2018 College World Series.
COMFY IN CALI
UW is opening the season in the state of California for the seventh straight season, dating back to 2017, the last time the Huskies matched up with Santa Clara in a three-game series. The last time the Huskies kicked off the season outside of the Golden State, Washington took two games off of Baylor in Waco, Texas.
SERIES HISTORY VS. SANTA CLARA
Washington leads the all-time series with Santa Clara 17-9, last facing off with the Broncos in 2019, an 11-1 Husky win in the Bay Area. UW and Santa Clara opened the 2017 season with a three-game series, with the Huskies taking games one and three.
HOMEGROWN DAWGS
Nearly half of the Husky roster, 19 of 39 players overall, are homegrown talents from the state of Washington. Of those 19 local products, 16 hail from the greater Seattle Metropolitan area. Below is a breakdown of the counties UW's Washington natives call home.
UW Washington Natives by County
King County - 14
Clark County - 2
Pierce County - 1
Snohomish County - 1
Spokane County - 1
FINISHING ON A HEATER
The Huskies finished the 2022 regular season as one of the hottest teams in the nation, winning their last 12 regular season games. Only two teams in the nation finished that strong in College World Series participant Stanford (also 12 games) and Super Regional host East Carolina (14 games).
During the streak, the Dawgs batted .361 as a team, averaging over 8.4 runs per game. Of the 150 hits UW recorded over the 12 games, 46 went for extra bases. Meanwhile, the pitching staff put together a 3.00 ERA, racking up 96 strikeouts to 30 walks over 102 innings.
Both McKay Barney and AJ Guerrero recorded at least one hit in every game of the streak, with Barney batting .500 and Guerrero posting a .447 average with five doubles, six home runs and 22 RBIs.
HEEEEEEERE'Sย JOHNNY
After earning All-Pac-12 and Pac-12 All-Defensive Team honors in 2022, Washington catcher Johnny Tincher was named to the Preseason All-Pac-12 team as voted on by the conference's head coaches.
A redshirt junior, Tincher enters his fourth season at UW coming off of a campaign in which he ranked second on the team with a .314 average. He drove in 35 runs and scored 27 more while posting 19 extra-base hits, including 13 doubles, five home runs and a triple. Defensively, Tincher threw out 10 of 31 runners attempting to swipe a bag last season, while garnering a .989 fielding percentage.
PROVE 'EM WRONG
The Huskies were picked seventh in the 2023 Pac-12 Preseason Poll by the league's head coaches. In last season's poll, UW outpaced its preseason projection of 10th significantly, earning the sixth place in the standings.
POSITION RANKINGS
Washington has five players listed in D1Baseball.com's position rankings, released ahead of the start of the 2023 season. The full list of UW players ranked is below.
UW in D1Baseball's Position Rankings
Johnny Tincher - No. 22 catcher
AJ Guerrero - No. 52 outfielder
Kiefer Lord - No. 100 starting pitcher
Jared Engman - No. 154 starting pitcher
Stu Flesland III - No. 166 starting pitcher
THE JUCO JUMP
Washington has 10 junior college products on its roster. Four players come from the Washington Community and Technical Colleges system, with four California Community College system products and two players from Arizona's Maricopa County Community College District.
RUN IT BACK
Washington returns nearly the entirety of its offense from the 2022 season with seven of eight positional starters returning that started more than 40 games, the Dawgs are poised once again to put up big numbers on the scoreboard.
Percentage Return from 2022
โข Games Started - 88.5%
โข Runs - 87.7%
โข Hits - 91.4%
โข Doubles - 92.3%
โข Triples - 87.5%
โข Home Runs - 93.8%
โข RBIs - 90.9%
โข Walks - 82.5%
EYES ON THE PROS
During the preseason, ProspectsLive.com listed four under-the-radar college pitchers that "move" like big leaguers, with half the list being made up by Huskies in Carleton College transfer Kiefer Lord and redshirt sophomore Case Matter.
ProspectsLive.com On Lord:
"Lord checks a ton of boxes in scouting circles. He's got a super-loose, whippy arm that is just now starting to show what it's capable of... Lord brushed 98 and 99 a couple times and appears poised to see his stuff move into the mid-90s this season."
ProspectsLive.com On Matter:
"Metrically, this kid checks a lot of boxes. He produces exceptional carry on his four-seam fastball and can rush it up to 96 at peak... Scouts love the way Matter moves. He's got big intent and aggressiveness, but he keeps it controlled. The kid clearly has feel for pitching and a feel for his delivery.
15 GAMES TO AIR ON PAC-12 FAMILY OF NETWORKS
15 Washington baseball games have been selected to air across the Pac-12 family of networks this season. Six home games from Husky Ballpark will air on your television set, while nine road games are set to be broadcasted. Of the 15 TV games for the Dawgs, 10 will air on Pac-12 Washington.
2018 OMADAWGS
2023 marks the five-year anniversary of Washington's 2018 team that became the first squad in program-history to reach the College World Series. The Huskies ran through the Conway Regional, sweeping three games against UConn and host Coastal Carolina. UW then took a decisive Super Regional Game 3 at Cal State Fullerton, erasing a one-run deficit in the ninth to force extras and walking off the Titans on Kaiser Weiss' sacrifice fly to score Levi Jordan and send the Dawgs to Omaha.
For more information on the UW baseball team, follow @UW_Baseball on Twitter and Instagram.
