Monday, 6/2/97 Long game, no Bruin gain BASEBALL: UCLA walks
into losers’ bracket after walking series-record 16
By Kristina Wilcox Daily Bruin Senior Staff Experience pays off,
as does good pitching. The UCLA baseball team, making the school’s
first appearance in the College World Series in 28 years, lost its
opening game to an Omaha-toughened Miami squad in 12 innings, 7-3,
Saturday afternoon. In the second-longest CWS game ever (four
hours, 42 minutes is second to the five-hour game between Oklahoma
State and Arizona State in 1981), the fourth-seeded Bruins
(45-20-1) scored first against the fifth-seeded Hurricanes (50-16)
on third baseman Jack Santora’s single in the bottom of the second
inning. But Miami came right back to tie the game in the top of the
third, and they held the upper hand from there on out thanks to the
sparkling pitching of senior left-hander J.D. Arteaga and closer
Robbie Morrison, both of whom have seen playing time in Omaha’s
Rosenblatt Stadium before. Arteaga, who made his sixth CWS start,
kept the powerful Bruins off-balance for 8 1/3 innings before
tiring in the ninth, when he allowed an opposite field, game-tying
home run to shortstop Troy Glaus. Arteaga attributed his success to
having one pitch working for him. "My breaking ball was working
well," Arteaga said. "I was locating it pretty well. The last
inning they finally caught up to it and Glaus hit it out. "I was
pretty tired. He hit a good pitch. He did a good job of adjusting.
I was a little out of gas." While Arteaga wasn’t out of gas until
the ninth, UCLA starter Jim Parque was having problems early.
Parque, who usually has pinpoint control, walked six batters in
five innings. Going into the game, he had averaged a walk every two
innings (57 bases on balls in 115 innings pitched). However, Parque
would not take all of the blame for throwing 106 pitches in just
five innings. "The umpire just killed me," Parque said. "He had a
high-ball (strike zone) and I’m a low-ball pitcher. The umpire
squeezed a lot of crucial pitches. I had to battle my (butt) off.
… I couldn’t establish a rhythm. "If you were to sum this up, it
was a frustrating and mentally exhausting game, because I had no
rhythm or consistent release point," Parque said. "If I don’t have
that, I’m basically (messed up)" Miami head coach Jim Morris gave
Parque credit for holding off the Hurricane offense for as long as
he did, saying that he did an "outstanding job" working around all
of those walks. But Parque could not find the plate consistently,
something that he and the coaches noticed during warmups. "We were
trying to figure out what was wrong with Jimmy," UCLA head coach
Gary Adams said. "This is the most gutsy performance I had all
year," Parque said. "Right when I started throwing, I knew I would
have to use mental toughness. When I walked the first batter, I
thought, ‘What was that?’" Mental toughness was enough to help
Parque hold the Hurricanes to three runs, with the big blow coming
in the fifth inning on left-fielder Jason Michaels’ two-run home
run after his teammates had tied the game on a wild pitch. With
Miami leading 3-1 going into the bottom of the ninth and Arteaga
mowing down batters, UCLA’s chances looked grim. But the Bruins did
not give up. Right fielder Eric Byrnes fought off a good pitch to
drive a single the opposite way. Glaus followed with the game-tying
homer to right field, giving his teammates the chance to win the
game. With Arteaga out of the game following a walk to second
baseman Nick Theodorou, UCLA had a chance to break through the
tough Miami pitching. Unfortunately, the reliever who followed
Arteaga picked up where the starter left off before the ninth.
Morrison (4-2), the reliever who gave up the series-winning home
run to Louisiana State in the CWS championship game last year, got
a chance to show everyone that he has rebounded well from that
stunning loss. In three extra innings that amounted to a battle of
the closers, Morrison shut down the Bruins, while UCLA’s Rob Henkel
and Jake Meyer (3-3) worked out of bases-loaded jams in the 10th
and 11th innings. But in the 12th inning, Meyer put himself in
another bases-loaded jam, walking the first three batters he faced.
And this time, Meyer did not regain control – he also walked the
fourth batter of the inning, forcing in Mike Lopez-Cao for the
go-ahead run. With those four walks, the Bruin pitchers had 16 in
the game, a CWS record. Miami rallied for three more runs off of
seldom-used Matt Klein, who surrendered a double, an intentional
walk and a single to the three batters he faced. The walks finally
caught up to the Bruins. "We kept dodging the bullet all day,"
Adams said. "We just couldn’t quite dodge that last one. We just
didn’t get it done." * * * With the loss, UCLA moves into the
loser’s bracket of the double-elimination tournament, where they
will face eighth-seeded Mississippi State (46-20) on Monday night.
The Bulldogs’ four-game winning streak was snapped by top-seeded
Alabama in the Saturday night game, which was delayed by an hour
due to the length of the UCLA game. Left-hander Peter Zamora (6-2,
5.17 ERA) will probably start for the Bruins because No. 2 starter
Tom Jacquez was used in Saturday’s game, going 2 1/3 innings in
relief of Parque. Jacquez, incidentally, did not walk a batter. * *
* During the CBS telecast of the game, the National Collegiate
Baseball Writers Association announced their All-American teams,
which include four Bruins. Parque and Glaus are on the first team,
along with Rice first baseman Lance Berkman, who is the Most
Outstanding Player on the team after setting an new NCAA season
record for RBI. Left-fielder Jon Heinrichs and Zamora were named to
the third team. * * * The major league baseball June draft starts
Tuesday, and UCLA has two players projected to go in the first
round. They are the Bruins’ two Olympians, Glaus and Parque. And
the Bruins’ first World Series team since 1969 has plenty of other
major-league prospects who will be hoping to hear their names
called this week. Daily Bruin wire services contributed to this
report. CHARLES KUO/Daily Bruin Peter Zamora (right), shown playing
first base in regional action, is UCLA’s likely starting pitcher
tonight.