The goal for the UCLA baseball team is to win eleven or twelve
of the final fifteen games and qualify for the postseason. To do
so, the squad must take advantage of three very winnable games this
weekend and sweep last-place Oregon State.
After defeating Loyola Marymount on Tuesday for their first
midweek victory of the season, the Bruins (20-25, 5-7 Pac-10) are
in the unfamiliar position of entering the weekend on a winning
note. The Bruins took care of the Lions 7-1, combining strong
four-hit pitching with a lineup that exhibited a novel amount of
patience in drawing ten walks.
“We worked all last week on being more comfortable with
two strike counts,” hitting coach Vince Beringhele said.
“Being more at ease means that our strikeouts go up, but more
importantly, so do our walks.”
Against Oregon State (18-22, 4-11), UCLA’s patience on
offense may be challenged as they eagerly await one of the poorer
pitching staffs in the Pac-10. The Beavers enter the game with a
5.92 ERA, eighth in the Pac-10.
Of course, the Bruins have not fared much better this season
posting a 5.76 ERA, seventh in the conference.
Over the last two weeks, though, pitchers have been forced to
deal with a switch at the catching position as regular receiver
freshman Chris Denove is sidelined for the remainder of the year
with a broken collarbone, leaving freshman Jeff Abney as the
primary catcher. Denove ended a very impressive first campaign
having batted .319 with six home runs and 26 RBIs in 39 games.
“What’s great about Jeff is that when he’s in
the game we’re not losing anything,” Denove said.
“I just started the year hot and it was harder for him to get
into games.”
While it might be easy to overlook the Beaver pitching, their
hitting is deceptively good. They bring a solid .300 team batting
average to Westwood including four starters, Tony Calderon, Chris
Biles, Andy Jarvis and Seth Pietsch batting .388, .362, .354 and
.333 respectively.
It will be the task of Bruin starters senior Mike Kunes,
sophomore Wes Whisler and sophomore David Johnson to stifle this
strong Beaver quartet.
“I’m concerned because Oregon State is a better team
than what their record indicates,” head coach Gary Adams
said. “They are an older team and unless we approach the game
with the same mentality as we did (in winning two out of three)
against Arizona State (No. 8), we’re not going to
win.”