Fresno State freshman outfielder Marcus Nolen hitting a home run against San Diego State (Courtesy of Fresno State Athletics)
The 2026 Mountain West baseball season has come to a close, with Washington State taking the crown as top program this year. At the end of the season, we here at Mountain West Connection want to recap how each program did, starting at the bottom and going until we reach the conference champion. Today, we will discuss Fresno State’s season.
Record: Fresno State finished with a 14-38-1 overall record and a 3-20-1 conference record.
Highlight: 5-4 win at Washington State on May 3 – The Diamond Dogs did not have many highlights to choose from this season, but one that stood out was their Sunday afternoon win against the Cougars towards the end of the season.
After not posting a single conference win for just over a month, that being against GCU at home on April 2, Fresno State’s postseason hopes were basically totaled without a miracle. Having already lost the series, the Bulldogs came back to Bailey-Brayton Field with nothing to lose, and came out with a dub. Both teams battled throughout the contest, with Wazzu evening out the matchup at four apiece after Washington State first baseman Ryan Skjonsby hit an RBI sac-fly in the eighth. In the ninth, Fresno State second baseman Mikey Pickett hit an RBI single to put the Dogs up 5-4, which relief pitcher Jordan Haver utilized to bring down the Cougars with a tiny scare from a double in between.
Fresno State had lost 10 straight conference games before this win, including some close contests against San Diego State and a mercy rule loss to Wazzu the day before. The season was basically wrapped heading into Sunday, and I don’t think there was much hope for all of the dominoes to fall in their favor. But this gave not only the team, but also the fans a sigh of relief that the program isn’t entirely screwed heading into their new home in the Pac-12.
Lowlight: Swept in series at Nevada from March 13-15 – Many fans can pick out any combination of games from the beginning of the season and point to how it showcased what problems Fresno State was going to have this year. For me, the combination of games were the program’s first three games against Nevada on the road.
Looking to build yet another top-seed worthy resume, the Bulldogs fell flat on their faces in mid-March. The first game was evidence that the scoring might’ve taken a step or two back, as they lost 4-9 while notching seven hits but leaving six runners in scoring position. While the Diamond Dogs were able to get more runs on the board in the second game, putting up 12 runs with 17 hits, it was the pitching staff that took the day off, allowing 15 runs (nine in the seventh) off the same amount of hits. After losing the series, Fresno State had the chance to get at least one against the previous year’s regular season champs, but repeated their performance from the first game, losing 4-9 yet again.
Fresno State’s final conference series against Nevada was a true embodiment of what it had to go through this year. On some days, it was the pitching that showed up, doing what they could to hold off any advances despite the momentum shifts, while the batting just was not there, leaving more runners in scoring position than runs scored. In others, the hitting was spectacular, putting up double-digit runs in several different ways, while the pitching was basically throwing a BP session.
Key stat: 2 – In a league where hitting ruled above all else, Fresno State was lackluster to say the least, only having two batters hit at or above .300 through the entire year, including those who played a decent amount of games but not enough to qualify for post season awards. To put in perspective, every other program outside of San Jose State (three) had five or more hitters in that threshold. Together, the Fresno State dugout combined for a team batting average of .268, which is tied with the Spartans for the lowest in the conference.
Season grade: F+ – While the expectation wasn’t necessarily for Fresno State to walk back into Mesa, Arizona and win the conference for the second year in a row, they did receive first place votes and wound up being the worst team in the Mountain West in 2026 by a wide margin. To consider that mark anything but a fail is underrepresenting the collapse the Diamond Dogs had from year-to-year. They did have a slight uptick with a couple of conference wins before the season ended, so it’s an F-, but just barely better.