Third baseman Eric Taylor hit a game-winning two-run, two-out
triple off of the bottom of the right-center field wall to give
UCLA a 2-0 lead.
Then the Bruins added 15 more runs for good measure.
Taylor’s triple came in the first inning of UCLA’s
17-0 throttling of UC Riverside on Tuesday night at Jackie Robinson
Stadium. Fifteen of those runs came in the first four innings.
It was the Bruins’ most lopsided shutout since a 20-0 win
over Arizona in 1983.
“It’s fun to do that once in a while, I’m not
going to lie,” Taylor said. “But a W is a W.”
Taylor finished the evening early, going 2-for-2 with four RBI
before being pulled along with most of the rest of the
starters.
However, he was hardly the lone Bruin to pad his statistics
against the woeful Highlander pitching. Sophomore designated hitter
Hector Ambriz had two hits and two RBI, sophomore shortstop Tommy
Lansdon had three hits and scored two runs, and sophomore center
fielder Jarrad Page had two hits, two runs and two RBI. And
that’s just to name a few.
Lost among the offensive fireworks, the Bruin pitching staff
methodically mowed down the Highlanders, allowing just two hits on
the evening. Junior Daniel Miltenberger started and worked four
effortless innings for his second win of the year.
“You have to give a lot of credit to Miltenberger,”
Taylor said. “He came out with his game and shut them
down.”
Despite the ease of the victory, UCLA coach John Savage was
unsure whether he likes these lopsided wins.
“That’s a good question,” he said. “You
want the team to do things the right way, and we did that tonight.
But you never want to see a score like that.”
UC Riverside’s ineptitude had a lot to do with the
embarrassing result. The Highlander defense made five errors and
botched a number of other plays that won’t show up on the
stat sheet.
With the game’s fate decided early, some Bruins who
don’t generally see much action received playing time.
“That’s one plus of these sorts of games,”
Savage said. “Some guys are rewarded for their hard work in
practice, and it was good to see them respond well.”
In the end, Tuesday’s victory will go down as just another
tally in UCLA’s win column. Still, at 17-0, it will appear as
quite a noticeable tally.