There’s an old adage in baseball that pitching and defense
wins games.
The corollary is that if a team has neither pitching nor
defense, they’re not going to win many games.
This is proving to be the case for the UCLA baseball team, as
the Bruins were swept yet again, this time by Arizona State.
“The main feeling is disappointment,” UCLA coach
John Savage said. “You just can’t get swept in the
Pac-10.”
UCLA was thoroughly outplayed throughout the three-game series,
being outscored 38-15 by the Sun Devils and committing an
astounding 12 errors over the weekend.
The Bruins, however, still had a shot of salvaging a victory
during Sunday’s game. Down 5-1 in the sixth inning, UCLA
erupted for five runs and took the lead. But in the bottom half of
the inning, pitcher Brian Schroeder, who relieved starter Paul
Oseguera, gave up two runs, relinquishing a lead the Bruins would
never recapture.
The loss was UCLA’s fifth straight, and the 24th in the
team’s last 25 games.
Though the Bruins are still unable to post victories, outfielder
Chris Jensen continues to be one of this season’s lone bright
spots. In the three games against the Sun Devils, the junior had
two home runs and four RBI.
While the Bruin offense didn’t have a poor weekend, it
appears that the bats were simply asked to overcompensate for poor
pitching and defense.
In Friday’s game, the Bruins held a 5-2 lead heading into
the sixth inning, but gave up ten unanswered runs over the last
four innings. Hector Ambriz, who started the game, only gave up two
runs in the first five innings of work.
But as soon as he entered the sixth, the floodgates opened. The
Sun Devils promptly knocked Ambriz around for three runs.
Schroeder, called in to relieve Ambriz, did not fare much better,
giving up another four runs.
While Saturday’s game was played amid rain and winds
upward of 35 miles per hour, the downpour was emblematic of Arizona
State’s onslaught. The Sun Devils scored 16 runs, and with
the Bruins committing seven errors, made it a long afternoon for
Savage and company. Brian Beck, who started the game, fell to 0-7
on the year.
The seven errors committed were the most by a Bruin team since
2001.